


Paparazzi

by tinylittlerobots



Category: Gundam SEED, Gundam SEED Destiny
Genre: Alternate Universe - Celebrity, Alternate Universe - Photographer, Angst, Drama, F/M, Flashbacks, Paparazzi, Photography, Psychological, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-13
Updated: 2017-08-25
Packaged: 2018-03-17 15:30:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 27,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3534671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinylittlerobots/pseuds/tinylittlerobots
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Athrun Zala is a reluctant tabloid photographer. He makes money from taking candid photos of celebrities and he sells them off to the press. But when he encounters an old flame - a 'rags to riches' celebrity, he is forced to delve deep into the brokenness of his mind and the darkness of her false persona.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Oh, Monroe

He bustles into his condo like a ghost amidst the waking hours of the morning. His dull jade eyes are half hidden by the folds of his eyelids and are perfectly framed by the shadows under them.

As the sun rises, the eerie orange glow streams through the glass panes and spreads across his face. It reveals his oily frazzled blue hair and the 5 o clock shadow that he's been sporting for that entire week. His appearance is of normalcy to anyone who joins this lonesome, tireless business he is trapped in.

With a quiet thud and a click, his door is shut and locked.

He lazily tries to walk over to his desk only to find himself staggering because of the jolting ache swelling across his left leg. As he staggers to sit down in his swivel chair he promptly pulls the strap from his neck and lays his professional D-SLR camera down onto his marble desk. He half-heartedly detaches the lenses and the additional flash equipment remembering that he forgot to do so in Dearka's van.

He briskly pulls up his left pant leg and groans, "Damn," after witnessing the sight of a large irksome purple bruise on his shin. He pulls down his pant leg recalling the incident that happened in the early morning where the longsome night was still present.

It was so senseless, the familiar meager shoving and kicking he was caught in, these violent actions stemming from the desire to make a living off of destroying someone else's privacy. He recalls the middle age man who undoubtedly and relentlessly kicked him for being in the way of his shot of Lacus Clyne (the young pop star who recently announced her engagement to the prestigious actor, Kira Yamato).Well, he couldn't necessarily blame the middle aged man for his actions, perhaps he has a family back at home to feed, unlike himself.

With a flick of his computer mouse his wide computer screen is brought to life. The screen is lit up so brightly that it causes his exhausted eyes to squint but as they adjust to the sudden brightness his eyes soften at the sight of an image, amongst many, left open on the screen.

There she was...an angel in disguise, an angel who has had her wings ripped off of her back the moment she threw herself into the hellfire of Hollywood.

She had been comfortably sitting on his leather couch with her bare legs narrowly sprawled across the length of it. An oversized red shirt was perched atop of her small torso while her arms reached out towards the camera. She was caught in the middle of laughter, her mouth ajar with her teeth fully exposed by her gleeful smile. Her piercing gold eyes twinkled like burning ashes as they looked above the camera with joyous amusement.

As he stares at the image, he allows his lips to evolve into a smile he rarely shows. One glance at her euphoria causes his stomach to swirl in temporary bliss, only to be replaced by an aching sense of sadness.

* * *

 

"Athrun...," she sang from the couch, her voice had a touch of impatience but some sort of playfulness in it. "Don't tell me you're whipping out your camera again."

He laughed, while he diligently cleansed the lenses. He then walked over to the couch right behind her, with a smile still bracing his face. "You are beautiful, Cagalli. But that's probably something you've heard before." He bent over and gently placed a kiss on her forehead, unaware of the shameful blush creeping on her cheeks.

"You really think so?" she asked, her voice was enveloped with a sense of far off insecurity.

Her unusual vulnerability amused him. "I tell you everyday of the week. You're a lot more than picture perfect."

She rolled her eyes, and began to fiddle with the ends of her short blonde hair. She scrutinized the tips of her hair, fanning it slowly in front of her face, as if in search of spilt ends that needed trimming.

"Hey, I'm being honest, you-"

"-I think I'm going to start growing my hair out."

"Huh?" The sudden comment surprised him so much that he put a halt to cleansing his lenses. "I thought you said long hair makes you feel like you're getting swaddled by cobwebs."

Cagalli got up and hastily pulled on a pair of black chinos. "I dunno, I kind of wanna try something new y'know? I'm tired of the same crap." Her fingers rapidly buttoned up her collared dress shirt. She stopped and glanced at the opposite direction from Athrun.

"Changes are good," she muttered to herself quietly and then continued on with her buttoning.

Athrun only shrugged in response, unaware that her statement was only for herself. "Changes could be bad though."

"Changes can be bad. Especially when you don't know when the fuck we're going to get kicked out of this apartment." She had tried to sound passive, but Athrun could hear the anger brewing in her voice.

Frowning, he asked, "What are you trying to say?"

"Athrun," sounding breathless she replied, "Do you have any clients...?"

"O-of course I do!" With trembling hands he placed his precious camera onto the coffee table, and then he stuffed his fists into the pockets of his jeans. "...What makes you think I don't Cagalli?"

The question steadily clung into the air. The tension between them was rising so quickly as if it were a high wave of water ready to crash down any moment. This seemed to be a question of faith, of her faith in him. But neither of them realized it.

She paused as though she was looking for the right words but she failed. Instead a yell came out, "Because I know when you're lying, Athrun!"

Athrun felt an acidic burning in his throat.

His jaw clenched.

He edged closer to her, a solemn grimace etched his face. "Do you even know how hard it is to find clients these days, Cagalli? There are so many photographers around in this city. I'm trying my best to start up a business here."

"Then be practical for once!" Cagalli was already putting on her high heels, making her way to the door while at the same time avoiding his eyes.

"Practical? You're the one who convinced me that I had a fucking chance with photography!"

"Just-just shut up Athrun. I'm going to be late for work."

"Okay, go to your workplace, hopefully your customers give you a huge tip for having such a practical job."

"Goddammit Athrun! Fuck off." She opened the door and stepped out. "Atleast I have a stable income. What about you?"

He ignored her. "Have a good night at work."

She shot a glare at him.

And that's when he noticed something different... a change.

Her eyelashes were thick. Each individual lash looked like spider legs while her lids contained an ashy brown shadow that lightly shimmered like smashed up crystals. Her lips... they were tainted with the colour of mauve pink. Due to this, her eyes looked brighter and her lips looked puckered despite the twist of resentment in her features.

"Are you wearing makeup?"

She stopped and stared at him, taking notice of the initial look of disbelief on his face.

Cagalli responded by shutting the door on him.

* * *

 

The knocking of knuckles against aluminum blends in with the ringing of a doorbell. At times the rhythm is in unison while other times it focuses on one sound, as though it were a broken pendulum swinging and remaining on one side of sound and then the other.

Knock, knock, knock. The bone joints of that fist hit harder, gradually becoming even more demanding of attention. It reminded him of relentless drumming that could easily be ignored if one were able to feign sleep.

"Athrun... I don't know what to say."

Ding dong, ding dong. Its noise is a relief, because the sound never heightens unlike the banging on the door.

"Just leave. Please."

If anything, the noise is being tossed around between his brief moments of consciousness and his longer moments of drowsy sleep.

"OPEN THE DOOR ATHRUN! C'MON OPEN UP!"

He tries to peer open his eyes but Athrun's eyelids feel as though they have been sewn shut. The heaviness of his lids takes on a weight on his sight. Maybe the noise would disappear if he kept his eyes closed.

"WAKE UP MAN!"

Rapid loud thuds and the annoying ringing erupt in fury together, like a sandstorm carrying the remnants of a broken house. The mixture of sound becomes ear-splitting.

"Agh...coming...don't break my door..." he groans, his own voice is muffled on the sleeve of his shirt. Wiping his eyes, he feels the crustiness of what kept his eyelids kissing.

Opening them, his hazy gaze falls upon the pitch black screen of the computer.

He groggily stands up from his chair, wiping his eyes even further. A pain crawls up his spine.

"Shit," he mumbles to himself, catching the putrid scent of his breath. He thinks to himself that he should have dragged himself to bed, he didn't realize how exhausted he was the night prior but his backache is his consequence.

"Dearka," he calls out, noticing how raspy his voice is. "Wait a couple more minutes, I gotta brush my teeth and shower."

"Oh hell no! I've been tryna bust open your door for the last fifteen minutes."

"Wait a bit."

"No damn way!"

Sighing, with much reluctance he approaches the door and unlocks it. Opening it, he sees Dearka's scowl emerge into a cocky grin.

"What do you want, Elsman?"

Dearka puts up his hands in surrender and waves them a bit, the cocky smile is still plastered on his lips. "I come baring good news."

"What is it...?"

"Your favourite celebrity's back in town."


	2. She's No Audrey Hepburn

Athrun stares down Dearka with an undoubtedly apathetic expression. His eyes hint at boredom and the stark greyness beneath his eyes cast on a dead shadow.

The grin on Dearka's face becomes strained. An eyebrow twitches for a second.

"I don't have a favourite celebrity. They're all shitheads," the latter finally speaks, each word sounds like a declaration of demise.

"Whoa, whoa, easy there lone wolf. You don't even know who I'm talking about, do you?"

"I don't," he says curtly, refusing to acknowledge it.

Dearka rubs his nose. "Shit I forgot her name... Caga..." He looks up at the ceiling and begins to snap his fingers. "Caga...Cagallay? No, wait, that's not it. Cagalli...Cagalli Yula Aiman!" Dearka points an index finger at Athrun and winks. "Cagalli Yula Aiman. You sir, Mr. Legendary Loner, have contributed to most of those magazine photos of her and the online ones as well. Thus, she is your favourite celebrity."

His voice is quiet. "That doesn't mean I have a favourite celebrity, Dearka... she's just easier to take photos of."

"Yeah, yeah! She's going to be in the Archangel District today, I'm sure you don't want to miss that, Athrun!"

Athrun's face remains stoic. "There's daylight, I only take photos at night... and I need sleep."

Dearka laughs, it's loud and full of life. "Isn't _that_ obvious?" He begins to pull his phone out of his pocket.

"What are you doing?"

With a discerning smile, he shoves his phone in Athrun's face. The screen is just centimetres away from hitting his nose.

Athrun eyes meet the image on the screen. His mouth slightly opens.

He takes a step back, feeling his stomach ache with gushes of regretful desire.

Dearka smile broadens. "I'll be waiting by the van outside. If you don't come down in fifteen minutes, I'm driving away."

"Screw you."

Dearka bows his head and salutes Athrun with two fingers. He starts to walk away with a bounce in his step.

Before Athrun could even close his door, he hears Dearka's cheery voice call out, "You took the picture! Not me!"

* * *

"I am currently sitting on a bench at the old district of Archangel. This is where celebrities randomly make appearances. This is just located East of Hollywood, and it only takes 45 minutes to reach this area. The reason why we are at the Archangel District is because Cagalli Yula Aiman is rumoured to be temporarily residing there for unknown reasons. _However,_ there have been rumours of her having a rocky relationship with Miguel Aiman, aka lead guitarist of the famous band 'Le Creuset'."

Athrun tries his best to suppress the urge to scoff at Miriallia. She's sitting beside him, speaking intensely into her red recording device as though she is some sort of professional newscaster. _She takes her job way too seriously,_ he thinks to himself, almost shaking his head. If there is anything Athrun hated more than the paparazzi, it is definitely the celebrity gossip bloggers. They appear to believe that their writing is more sacred than journalistic accounts of wars and government deception. _And to think that these bloggers believe they're decent journalists..._

"She is fed up with Miguel's cheating ways and _apparently,_ he was seen with a model during London's fashion week. _Has_ he been cheating on her?"

"That's complete bullshit, Miriallia," Dearka says with his arms folded. "It's so obvious she's been sleeping with Miguel Aiman's band mates."

"Dearka stop ruining my recording! And for the record, I don't believe that Cagalli Yula Aiman is cheating on Miguel Aiman."

"Oh, and how do you know that?" he questioned with smug eyes.

"Because I know her."

Dearka mockingly chuckled. "No you don't!"

"I have a picture with her and we've breathed the same air, therefore I know her. She's super sweet and kind and she would never ever cheat on anyone. She even remembered my name the second time I met her."

At those words, Athrun feels a sting in his chest. He tries to brush off the feeling but it remains, keeping the blood in his chest cold. There is nothing he could say to stop their tedious bickering, so he observes the Archangel District, their conversation fading away slowly from his ears.

He notices that the buildings in the Archangel District hold a nostalgic air of the 1950s. Their bricks are washed out of vibrancy but the architecture of the windows frames are precisely curved to look like a semi-circle. Flowers are located right beneath the windows, blooming with vivacious colours that are distinguishable against the worn out bricks that are covered with emerald vines.

Essentially, Archangel District is only made up of two long strips of buildings. On each side, the structures contain clothing boutiques, hair salons, coffee shops and restaurants that are only open for the prestigious... the people who have money.

Archangel District was established in the 1940s and due to the area's reminiscent value, it began to blossom with multiple businesses that were able to rent the property. It didn't take long for the 'FOR LEASE' signs to show up when businesses couldn't pay their rent. It paved way for richer companies to replace them with their aristocratic reputation.

Famous people and rich teenagers would lounge around the district. While the famous go to this place for leisure time, rich teens go to feel like they are the famous. Wherever famous people are, the rich would follow and so would the paparazzi. The paparazzi would swarm the area, scattered in groups with their professional cameras in hand.

Today is no exception. Athrun could see different paparazzi groups huddling like ants in corners, just standing there, waiting like animalistic hunters.

"She's a humanitarian! She helps African kids and animals!" He hears Miriallia yell.

"So what, that doesn't mean she can't be sleeping around! What you do doesn't define who you are."

Athrun finds Dearka's statement contradictory, but he doesn't disrupt the banter.

"Oh God, Dearka, you are _so_ annoying."

"Hey, I'm a paparazzo not a fan girl," he says, smirking at his victory. He turns to Athrun. "Aye, hawk eyes, are you scanning the area?"

"Yeah," Athrun mumbles. He pulls up his grey hood and puts a hand on his satchel which contained his DSLR camera. "Let's get going guys."

As he walks he realizes that only Dearka is at his side, while Miriallia is trailing behind them. It seems to be that she purposely allowed herself to lag behind like a follower. Athrun thinks to himself that Miriallia has always acted strange around him, her conversations with him are often short and distant. He wonders whether or not she caught on to his disregard towards her occupation of being a professional gossiper.

"So..." Dearka starts, "that photo..."

"What about it?"

He is grinning now. "I had a feeling it would convince you to come."

Athrun doesn't say anything and continues walking straight on the side walk. His vision is shrouded by the structures, looking for the right place where he may find their prey. Once he can catch a glimpse, he can easily capture her behind his lenses.

"That photo was everywhere! Magazine covers, blogs..."

"I posted it on my blog too," Miriallia adds in, the slight tremor in her voice gave away her excitement. "Athrun, you're actually amazing. Your photos of Cagalli Yula Aiman make her look like an angel."

Dearka dreamily sighs. "God, if only it were me who sold that photo...I would have charged more... and I would have been rich! You sold it for seven thousand dollars, right?"

"Yeah," Athrun says with a voice devoid of emotion.

It was a miracle, or by chance, although he would never call it that, because it would deem him lucky, when clearly he is not.

* * *

About a year after Athrun and Cagalli parted, Athrun had began to find comfort in visiting beaches. His sole motivation to get out of bed was to watch the sun rise bring upon a new day. He felt that it was better to go early in the morning before the world was awake so he can share a moment with nature and himself. Solitude was something that he can only accept during the crack of dawn, but after the sunlight shrouded the world, the harmful loneliness would call him backwards.

The solitude allowed him to think honestly.

_Are you happy?_

It was a question that leapt inside his mind constantly when he was by the shore. It was a question that wasn't just for him, but for her.

Sometimes the waves would tell him, other times it was the gritty feeling of the sand.

 _No_ they told him. _No. No. No._

It was all in his head.

Whenever that thought would occur to him, he would bring his camera up to his face, and peer inside the square viewfinder, with his other hand adjusting the 35 mm lenses he used for the ever changing sky.

He would wait for the grey to vanish into a soft wash of warm colours. When it did... it always made him smile and forge a new memory of the sky.

This particular day was different though. He had not snapped a photo of the sky that day.

She was there with him, watching the same wash of colours blend into the sky, reclaiming the old and reclaiming the new.

He did not notice her at first.

But the faint sound of her music playing prompted him to ignore the sky.

The first thought that came to mind, was _God, that song is annoying._

It was that girl with the drowsy and soft voice, drawling on about forsaken summer romances and the desperation for losing solitude. Her voice echoed and gracefully plagued the ghostly string instruments. But the song sounded so rustled, as though it were being played through a crappy radio. Athrun could no longer focus on the sky anymore. He turned his head to the direction of sound, to figure out what the hell broke him out of his lamenting peace.

Then he saw her.

Staring up, eyes gentle, bare faced, hair soaring, and a small thoughtful smile spread across her lips.

She was a large distance away from him. Standing all alone with a portable radio, while looking up at daybreak, probably thinking it looked like a painting with its violet churns and tingeing crimsons.

_Cagalli, you're so silly. Life doesn't imitate art._

Then she started to glow like a seraph as her blonde hair became a smooth sliver of gold. Her smile was intoxicating.

Seeing her like that made him forget what she had become.

Athrun quickly brought up his camera, eye through the viewfinder, seeing her differently behind his lenses. He slowly moved closer to her, sand swirled under his toes, while the wind whistled delicately against the back of his neck.

The moment was shot.

Just one click and then he left while the crashes of waves were still calm and the sky was still shifting.

He did not care if she noticed him or not.

* * *

Creeping up on his shoulder, Dearka whispers loudly in Athrun's hood covered ear, "Do you ever masturbate to her photos?"

When Athrun doesn't answer, Dearka pulls down his hood.

"Don't do that." He pulls it back up. "And don't ask me dumb questions like that."

Dearka bellows out with laughter when he sees the white palette of Athrun's face turn to red. "I'm just screwing with you. You should really lighten the hell up!"

"I'll lighten up after this whole ordeal is over," Athrun grumbles.

"Ordeal?"

"Yes."

"Guys...?"

Dearka and Athrun both turn their heads to Miriallia. Her eye brows are scrunched together in agitation. "Does anyone know where Cagalli Yula Aiman might be?"

"She's most likely staying at the hotel over there." Athrun points to a small coffee shop. The bricks of the shop are painted in a pristine black, and the large square window frames from the three floors of the place are as white as milk. Amongst the first floor, the words _Espresso Soul_ are etched above the wide glass doors in intricate white font.

"That's a coffee shop, Athrun," Dearka says stifling a chuckle with his hand. "Seems like you're slipping."

"Actually, it's a coffee shop and hotel," Miriallia pipes in. "It's not a traditional hotel, it's on top of the coffee shop and rooms are around seven hundred dollars per night."

"You've got to be kidding me..."

"Nope. Apparently all the walls in the rooms are covered in art. Famous people art, like Andy Warhol and stuff! " Miriallia beams. "The place is actually huge inside! And the coffees all organic and they're imported from different countries. It's probably a gazillion times better than Starbucks."

"Cagalli does like coffee," Athrun mumbles, forgetting that the two of them are not aware that he knew her personally. Once he realizes this, he immediately states, "I read it in a magazine somewhere."

Miriallia smiles fondly at him. "You've read my blog, haven't you, Athrun?"

"Sure." Athrun suppresses another temptation to scoff at her.

Dearka blatantly coughs, "Fanboy."

"Let's just get a move on."

They start to become closer to the coffee shop and as they grow nearer, Athrun's thoughts teeter and totter towards regret and anticipation.

There's a weight on his chest that feels like a thousand coiled fists pressing him down. It's this nervousness that reaches from his chest and tickles up to his neck.

The feeling is not unusual.

It visits him every time he knows he will be in physical range of his past. This past revisited him in bouts of fooling him that the Cagalli he is about to see is the same Cagalli he used to share a bed with.

It's startling to Athrun, the way she still invokes repressed emotions in him. It makes him feel almost pathetic, but not wholly so.

 _Screw it,_ he thinks.

She doesn't see him behind the flashbulbs of those invasive cameras. It's been three long years, and she never sees his face. It blends in with the paparazzi like stretches of mixed paint on a canvas.

He finds that there is one problem with the current situation he is in.

The radiating heat from the sun glimmers down on him and the heat is nullified by the light breeze of spring. The sun in the sapphire sky is the perfect lighting condition for capturing photos. Yet the light knows how to expose a person who hides in the dark, or in the shadows of ill fallen victims to idol worship.

The problem is easily dismissible. Not once has she ever seen the man Athrun became behind the camera. She only had seen the past of this man.

When you begin to remember someone, their image of them that engrosses your head is from your last memory of them. When you see them often, the image changes gradually, but if it's been years, your last memory of that person is of a younger version of them selves. Athrun has seen her change, he has seen her morph into the famous and delicate young woman she is now. The image of her that engrosses his mind when he thinks of her is the one of her baring her slightly stained teeth at him in a smile, while her tresses gently touch her shoulders.

As he waits with the others, he briefly closes his eyes and imagines a younger Cagalli stepping out of the hotel coffee shop. He imagines her with a loose tank top and tight cargo pants tucked into combat boots. Doors close softly, as she struts out holding her half empty coffee cup in her hands.

Athrun blinks his eyes open when he hears the door of the coffee shop open.

"Oh my God, it's her!" He doesn't know who screams it. But all he sees are paparazzi men and women running towards the shop like a flock of zombies that found their prey.

He finds himself stranded on the spot meters away from where _she_ is. He notices that Miriallia, and Dearka are already rushing forward shoving him out of the way with their shoulders.

Dearka turns his head around, and an all knowing look is upon his face. "Only someone as slow and steady as you can win the photo." He continues running.

Athrun steps forward, and walks. Each step makes his foot feel heavy. Unconsciously he feels with his fingers the hood masking his hair. _Good, it's still there._

Click, click, click.

"Cagalli look over here, gorgeous!"

"Can you sign this for me?"

"I am one of your biggest fans."

"Is it true that you and Miguel are having problems?"

"How was your coffee?"

"You're even prettier in person!"

Moving closer, he hears all this. The words, the clicks, they all sound like a broken record player, busting out over used and rejected tunes.

From his vision, the crowd looks like there's about twenty of them. But he could be wrong.

He reaches the end of the crowd, looking like an outsider because he is not within it.

Athrun grabs his camera from his satchel and cautiously lifts the object up to his right eye, peering through the viewfinder and seeing the grey hair of a man in front of him. Cagalli is not in sight, not yet.

His fingers are placed on the 50 mm lenses, and he adjusts them, focusing in. Behind multiple shoulders, he catches a glimpse of the side of her face. Everything around her blurs as he adjusts the lenses again. Then someone's back covers his view of her.

Athrun heads into the crowd, camera protected by his arm like he is carrying a newborn. Absentmindedly he is pushing himself through the weight of people, feeling nothing of them.

"Hey! Fuck you man!"

It's easy to ignore insults from strangers. Just pretend it never happened. Pretend no one is in the crowd, and then it becomes easier to join, to pass through. _I will get my shot of her even in the fucking daylight._

He's nearing the front; a blanket of comforting serenity engulfs him as he feels like a ghost just crossing to the other side.

He could see the top of her head.

"You guys flatter me too much." Her voice is drenched with fake breeziness.

Before he knows it, he is at the front. The crowd behind him is muted in his mind. His camera has already risen to his face, concealing his identity.

He sees her entirely.

Her fitted black dress on her thin body is flowing beneath the waist and her shimmery hair is piled on top of her head in a classy up do.

Athrun couldn't even admire her beauty through the eyes of his lenses. He does not feel the same awe others would feel when they see her, the awe that overwhelmed him was her altering self, the barely recognizable person she seemed to be.

"Fuck you asshole!"

A pair of hands slaps both his wrists so hard that his gentle grip on his camera slackens and falls right out of his hands. He watches it descend face down, like a rock being tided down a waterfall. He braces himself for the earth shattering crack of the lenses.

However, it doesn't plummet to its death. It plummets into the small hands of... Cagalli.

She is bent down on the ground, her knees skid the cement. There are white scratches on those knobby knees of hers.

Cagalli's hands hold out the camera and she stares at it, flipping the camera so that the lenses are at her face.

"I'm sorry, sir but I think I scratched the lenses," she says, almost sounding remorseful for an inanimate object.

Athrun keeps his mouth closed. His heart is thundering and a wave of nausea goes over him. A panic in his body is ensuing. The feeling is so unfamiliar it makes him want to vomit.

She lifts herself up, still gazing at the camera. A frown is on her face. When she looks at him, the world seems to freeze and he becomes numb.

Cagalli's eyes bore into Athrun as if he is the only person standing in front of her. With her mouth slightly ajar, and his name scrawled on her tongue, she places the camera into his hands. Their fingers brush against each other causing a strange surge of coldness in both of their fingers.

"Thank you, Miss." The words are so unfitting and so strained with emotional discomfort.

"You're welcome, sir," she says quietly. Her eyes search his face, seemingly looking for truth that it is him.

Their eyes meet. They fixate on each others eyes; the vacancy is within both the green and ochre. She is the first to look away.

"I'm very sorry, sir."

Athrun thinks he hears a trace of sadness in her voice. But the thought disappears when she turns her body away from him.

She is momentarily silent amidst the clicks of camera and the voices of the paparazzi. Soft spoken words begin to fall gracefully from her pretty mouth as her hands continuously signed autographs. From time to time a smile would reappear on her face.

The look of her bleached teeth beneath her dark red lips are as contrasting as a black and white film.

He continues to stand there, watching, feeling her presence so close to his. He can not will himself to move away from her. The cold touch lingers on his hands, her apology imprints cruelly in his mind.

Athrun's eyes never leave her being until he brings his camera up to his eye again.

Behind scratched lenses, he snaps a photo of Cagalli's distressed smile.


	3. I Can't Be James Dean

Athrun's forehead is pressed hard against the dashboard of Dearka's rolling van, his fingers are trembling. The whiteness of his skin turns grey.

He screams, "Just give me a fucking cigarette, Elsman!"

Dearka roughly yanks down Athrun's hood. "What's gotten into you, man?! Are you star struck or something? 'Cause if you are, you're just acting like a dumbass lunatic! Or are you pissed off because –"

_I'm very sorry, sir._

Those four words keep drilling themselves deep inside Athrun's head. The pain is continuously gnawing at him like a reopened wound. After three years, those were her only words to him? Her words mimicked those of a stranger, but the way those draining eyes stared at his face gave out a hint of vague recognition.

He puts a shaky hand to his mouth. Eyes are closed.

_I'm very sorry, sir._

A laugh tears through his lips. The muffled laugh is vivacious but beneath the layers are maniacal pulses. His back quivers, as his other hand slaps onto the hand that stifles his mouth. He can't stop laughing, and he despises the very sound of it.

He sounds like he's being strangled by a noose that isn't his.

Athrun abruptly stops, breathing unevenly.

A cigarette hits him in the ear.

"What the hell is wrong with you?!"

He glances up, feeling the warm sweat on his forehead. A lighter strikes his nose. It lands on his thigh beside the fallen cigarette. His hands fumble to grab the items that are supposed to provide tranquility to his thoughts.

Athrun quickly places the cigarette between his open lips and holds onto the lighter tightly. Hands are no longer shaking.

Spinning the small wheel on the lighter, he hears it click and the flame appears. The orange glow ethereally reflects on his pallid fingertips. He brings the flame from the lighter to the end of the stick, and sees it burn amber with black smouldering the edges.

While he puts the lighter down, he sucks in the smoke and fluidly pulls the cigarette out. A puff of smoke is blown out of Athrun's mouth, mingling with the whitish blue wisps swaying out from the cigarette.

He takes another hit with his chest rising, he's inhaling the smoke fully, feeling it itch down his throat and into his lungs. Exhaling, the smoke makes it way up, warming him but scratching his throat. Athrun smothers a cough while the white wisps reappear in front of him. He gazes at it with calm eyes.

Two more hits.

And his body feels light, as though it is merging into the air.

Athrun's eyes go shut and her goddamn face appears.

The face with the distressed smile and soft skin... it morphs into a face that laughs raucously with lips that bare no trace of red stains. _Don't you look cool, Athrun?_

Eyes are now wide open. He feels something grasp at his chest.

"Is your psycho self feeling better now?" Dearka asks, while rolling down the window.

Athrun doesn't respond. He just watches the last strings of smoke evaporate into the air.

Dearka momentarily steals a nervous glance at him. The edge of his bottom lip is bit.

Athrun notices, but keeps himself silent. He stares out the window, trying to witness the colours of cars blending in one another speeding their ways through. Within the blurs, he sees a still image of himself on the window, a reflection of his face.

 _You look like you died, and were brought back to life by some shitty scientist,_ he thinks to himself. A self-directed smile creeps along the lines of his mouth. _I look like shit, and she saw that. While she looks like a doll, I look like shit._ He tries to repress a laugh but he's shaking again.

His mind flashes to those words, each letter excruciatingly fogging any sort of clarity that was present when he saw the grey wisps.

_I'm very sorry, sir._

What kind of apology was that?

Was it one that was meant for the insufferable loneliness he felt?

Athrun wants to hit his head against the window to shatter it and feel the shards pierce through his brain.

Acknowledging the shakiness of his fingers, he snuffs the cigarette out the window.

Cigarettes don't work anymore, not for him at least.

He couldn't even keep himself calm. That caged enragement that squirms inside his chest makes him want to laugh at himself, at his own foolishness.

"Look Athrun," Dearka suddenly says with a small voice. "I know it's hard to contain your excitement of actually meeting your favourite star and all..."

Wrong.

When Athrun doesn't respond, Dearka continues, dragging on his concerning voice. "But sometimes you gotta chillax...and not act like a fuckin' psycho that makes his only friend shit his pants... I swear to god, if you start crying now because of Cagalay Yala Aimon or whatever her stupid name is, you gotta stop and think to yourself 'Why am I crying over some famous bitch that I don't even know on a personal level?'

They're just people who are rich and people like us get rich off of them getting rich. It's a whole friggin' ecosystem. But like an ecosystem, you don't get attached to a fish you're going to eat, you eat it without knowing it personally." He is babbling on words that don't string along coherently.

"What the hell are you talking about Dearka?"

"Hey! That's the simplest way I can explain it! I tried, but even a good photographer might not even have the brains."

"You're not a good photographer, Dearka."

"I was talking about you, dick wad." Dearka has a tiny grin on his face, as though he is hesitating to smile. "But anyways, that video of her being nice and picking up your camera is probably going to be all over the internet. I could already see it..."

He alters his voice to become lower, mimicking the forced professionalism of a news anchor. " 'Breaking news! ...while twenty people died in a highway incident, check out what the sweet Cagalay Yalu Imon girl did! This 'rags to riches' sensation was kind enough to pick up a paparazzo's camera. Of course she would do that! She used to be as poor as everyone else in the world! Now she's just spreading her kindness to everyone! Let's pay her even more, for just existing!" Dearka takes a hand off the steering wheel and pretends to hold an invisible mike towards Athrun. "Now, Mr. Athrun Zala, how did it feel to have this blonde beauty pick up your camera? Did you get to see her boobs?"

Athrun scoffs but decides to play along. "No, she scratched my lenses with her nails."

Dearka chuckles. "Already got you in a better mood, eh, buddy?"

"Yeah..." he reluctantly replies.

"There's one good thing about her saving your camera."

"And what's that?"

"All the dumbass photographers are gonna start dropping their cameras so that she'll pick it up and once their camera is damaged they won't have a chance at taking more pictures of her. Actually, maybe I should do that. Then get a boob shot of her with an extra camera while she bends down!" He wistfully sighs. "I smell big bucks already."

"Your schemes are crap, Dearka."

"A boy can dream." He stops the van in front of a condominium that towers over many other condos with its mirror-like windows. Its architecture looms with modern edge due to the straight and sharp angled design.

"Thanks for the ride Dearka," Athrun says, stepping out of the vehicle. His satchel slung over his shoulder.

As he is about to close the door Dearka tells him, "Flay Allster is rumoured to be hitting up some clubs tonight, Miriallia and I are going to meet up with some paparazzi people to track her down. You wanna come?"

Athrun shakes his head. "I've had enough of celebrities for today."

* * *

The glaring brightness of the afternoon sun is blocked by the sunburnt blinds of Athrun's windows. The half light reveals the murkiness of his inhabitancy, a thin layer of dust coats the TV, coffee table, and even the dining table.

He settles himself down on the couch, placing his satchel beside him. His slouching body feels heavier than before. He rubs his eyes, and then stares at the ceiling above him.

Athrun tries not to think of anything, he tries to keep his a mind blank slate. But the memory of her keeps replaying over and over again like seven minute film reel.

After three long years, she's finally encountered him.

He's been in hiding for so long, and the one time he decides to catch her in the light, he is instead captured by her vacant beauty.

She had acted so strange towards him. Her polite words and the way she carries herself is reminiscent of an old Hollywood beauty – one that is shy and elegantly graceful in the way her body moves and of the words produced.

He has seen her in interviews.

The language of her body is so foreign to him.

Even though she is already petite, she would make herself seem smaller, with her legs crossed, and her hands on her lap. Her voice would turn into resounding shyness and the refining smile she took with her always bounded fans into the realm of adoration.

Athrun recalls the interview she did with an online fashion magazine many months ago.

She had been sitting on a rouge couch, wearing a white chiffon dress that draped over her thighs like a sheer blanket. Cagalli's posture was perfect, her legs were crossed so delicately and her hands rested on her lap, not fiddling with anything.

"How did you meet the love of your life?"

"Miguel?" She lightly laughed, with her mouth concealed by a dainty hand. "I used to work at this restaurant and he would always be playing acoustic songs on his guitar. He'd be singing ballads –"

"Ballads for you?"

She smiles a tiny smile. "I guess you can say that. He used to approach me at the end of the night when we were closing up the restaurant. Miguel always started these charming conversations with me."

"That's adorable! How long have you been married for?"

"2 years... I've never been happier."

"I'm so happy for you!" The interviewer said with such energy. "How do you feel about Miguel going on tour with his band? Do you ever worry about groupies and stuff like that?"

The camera zoomed in on Cagalli's face then, expecting an emotional or heart wrenching answer.

Except her face did not change, it kept the facade of delicacy with that smile.

"No, I never worry... because I love him and he loves me."

Athrun had stopped watching the interview after that answer. He had felt his stomach tighten, and even thinking about that interview made those feelings return.

He grabs his DSLR from his bag, and turns it on.

The first image that surfaces is the medium close up shot of her face.

She is the focus of the image, as she usually is. Her eyes are shifted down, signing autographs in her hands. You can see the glimmer of sunlight on her hair, and the way her skin radiates against the light. The makeup is evident by the streak of dark red lipstick, and the long false lashes that fletch onto her real ones – it gives her eyes a bambi like quality. Underneath those lashes the ochre eyes are hiding.

Athrun stares at her distressed smile, and he notices the camera scratches that spawn over the image. The lines entrap her smile, like clear spider webs distorting the peace of life.

He is wondering what she was thinking at that time. He wonders whether or not nervousness bubbled up in her stomach or if she believed that he was make-belief. Maybe she convinced herself that he was just a figment of her imagination so that she could ease the emotions that might have come over her.

Maybe she felt nothing at all.

But what did he expect when she allowed those apologetic words to fall out her mouth? Did he want her to utter his name like a question?

He wants that. Just for her to acknowledge him as a person from her past.

* * *

He was trembling as the autumn winds carried themselves at him, rattling at his bones as though they were wind chimes.

A lit cigarette hung precariously between his fingers. Its smoke drifted into the air.

A younger Athrun stood outside a coffee shop, leaning against the wall beneath a dusty lamp. The rotted yellowness shone above his head, it was a weak light compared to the glow of the night's moon.

He huddled his hands together and blew his breath on them. The warmth faded away quickly, barely making a difference. "Damn cold," he muttered, pulling up the zipper of his leather jacket all the way to his neck, scraping at the skin.

With shaky hands, he took a long drag from the cigarette. The nerves that bellowed up from his stomach had threatened to paralyze his unspeaking mouth and body. Besides uncontrollably trembling and having a cigarette move to his lips, he was immobile.

_What the hell was I thinking?_

His insecure thoughts buckled at his throat and his eyes flitted back and forth, stinging with dryness. The starchiness of his tongue evaporated words that could have came out earlier.

_Why the hell did I feel risky today?_

He knew he would have lost nothing. He owned nothing. Apathy was his only acquaintance at that time. Athrun had easily detached the very existence of emotions days before – when he came to the realization that he would be alone. So why not do things on a whim? He wanted to feel the typical high that people his age felt.

"You're... you're a fucking asshole," he heard someone say to him. The voice possessed a husky quality that seemed to verge on the beginning of a cry.

He turned his head, and the door of the shop was open.

A girl with short hair stepped out, leaving the door to draw back to its frame. A bell rang when it closed fully.

She made her way over towards him, the bottoms of her combat boots dragged along the cement ground. Standing in front of him, she made a cautious decision to be a small distance away from him.

The two of them were trapped in each other's presence.

Athrun wondered if she could feel the looming shadow of anxiety that took over his aura.

She was clutching tightly onto her elbows, digging her fingers into the red flannel sleeves. Teeth were clattering and her body continuously shivered. Her back was hunched over and her eyes were averted from him.

Athrun could only stare at her shivering figure.

"Where's your jacket, Cagalli?" he asked gently, leaving the cigarette between his lips. His gaze wandered over her form. She was ridiculously dressed with a red flannel shirt that loosely hung over a deep cut black tank top. She wore torn shorts with stockings underneath. He could see the winds go through her and wrap itself around her blood. It somehow made him colder.

"Go back inside," he said. "It's cold."

"I'm not going back inside," she replies briskly, venom was seeping in her words. "You-you can't just leave me inside for thirty minutes to take a damn smoke!"

Athrun didn't know what to say, but he saw her eyes brimming with unshed tears. His silence beckoned her to speak.

"You ask me out for a coffee date... and then you have the audacity to fuckin' leave? If you lost interest in me, you could have just let me know, instead of... instead of...being a coward and walking out on me!"

Athrun kept his silence.

He had asked her out on a date hours prior... and he hadn't really given a damn if she rejected him or not.

Athrun had expected her to say 'no' and feel the pangs of rejection, but instead she had said 'yes' to him with a shy smile. He succumbed to ecstasy momentarily until he realized he had absolutely nothing to say to her, as for the last two months since University started, his mouth barely opened for words. They only opened for cigarettes.

He took another hit, the fragments of smoke wavered out his mouth. Its whiteness fogged over Cagalli's face, acting like a small veil. It faded out the sadness that ached over her features.

"I know you don't give a shit. I don't even know why I'm even bothering with someone like you..." She looks up at his face for reassurance that her assumption was right. They wander from his eyes, to his cheeks and to his lips.

Athrun's face was expressionless.

She looked away from him again.

He felt the chokehold of guilt.

"Cagalli..."

She was shivering even more. She rubbed her hands and then clutched at her arms, as though she were engaging in a hug with herself. Her open lips became chapped as Athrun heard her ragged breathing.

The diminishing whispers of smoke continued to disillusion her face. The yellow light harshly brought on a sinister radiance but the moon's natural glow fought its way to illuminate the shadows that played on her skin.

The dark and the light made her the perfect balance of unconventional beauty.

Athrun could no longer breathe anymore. But he felt his breath suck in the smoke from the cigarette that rested on his mouth. While taking out the cigarette, bursts of stringy smoke slipped out between his lips, coiling around Cagalli's head.

He noticed that she was closer to him. Her dazed eyes gazed through the smoke and at his lips.

"Don't you look cool, Athrun," she said, her voice was smoother than the smoke that floated amid them.

The cigarette dropped from his grasp.

Leaning over, his tobacco tainted mouth met hers.

He almost flinched at the touch. It was... surprisingly warm.

She didn't kiss him back.

He emancipated the lip lock.

"Athrun, what the hell?!" Her small hands pushed him against the wall. She bit her lip before she said, "I don't understand you!"

He didn't immediately respond. His daring action had numbed him. He glanced down, and saw his cigarette being crushed beneath her grey boots.

"I'm sorry," he said, hearing his voice crack. "I don't understand myself either." He hesitated. "It's just been hard for me...these past few months. I can't get a hang of university... I think I hate everything here. I've stopped caring... about a lot of things."

He refused to look at her. His stare went beyond her shoulders. He didn't want to see her sympathy... he already felt it.

"I think I have a lot of anxiety problems..." he continued. The words felt so strange yet honest. "I'm away from home. I can't fucking speak to anyone. Everyone seems to already know each other. I just stay cooped up in my apartment room, staring at the ceiling, thinking of nothing." The way the words flowed from his mouth somehow made him feel lighter than the cigarettes ever did. "You don't need to pity me – I'm sure my problem is not uncommon."

There was silence.

"Athrun..." She put her hand inside her bag, ruffling the contents inside. "...take this, please."

Cagalli reached for his hand, and placed something cold inside it, folding his fingers over it. He looked down to see what it was.

A sleek red digital camera was lying in his palm. He looked at Cagalli, puzzled.

"If you take pictures of your surroundings, and you examine the image more afterwards, you start to see a lot of beauty. It sounds cheesy. But, if you could find the beauty of where you are, then maybe you'll become happier." Cagalli then smiled at him thoughtfully.

He stared at the device in his hands. He started flipping it over, his thumb brushed over the buttons. "Are you sure you don't need this, Cagalli?"

"I'm sure. You can borrow it until you feel better."

"That's an unusual way of therapy."

"I tried my best."

Athrun smiled at her. "Thank you."

With his free hand, he grabbed a hold of hers. Freezing fingers tightly interlocked.

"Let's continue this date."

A pinkish hue coloured her nose and cheeks.

* * *

His phone vibrates against the glass surface of the coffee table. It rumbles viciously, moving on its own, clearing the dust underneath it.

Athrun lays his camera down on his lap. An arm reaches for the cell phone.

He glances down at the screen.

An unknown number.

His mind starts to spin.

 _Cagalli? No – it can't be..._.

His heart heaves against his ribcage.

A thumb hovers over the green 'answer' square on the screen

He taps at it and slowly places the phone to his ear.

"...hello?" he says warily.

" _Wow... I didn't expect you to pick up._ "

"Who is this?"

" _Miriallia."_

Athrun's pulse returns to normal. A sigh is released.

"Oh."

" _Who else were you expecting?_ "

"No one."

" _Cool, how's everything going?_ "

"Just...fine."

" _Have you been on the interwebs lately?"_

Athrun almost wants to laugh at her silly phrasing but a frown tackles his face. "No."

" _Just so you know, before you become an internet phenomenon... I want to write about you on my blog."_

He could tell she is grinning.

" _A.K.A an interview! There are some people who got the whole thing on video. Everyone's wondering who you are._ "

He stares at the photo on the camera. Eyes linger at the person beneath the scratches. _Cagalli Yula Aiman. No longer Cagalli._

"I'd rather remain nameless..." he murmurs.

" _Huh?_ "

"I'm sorry Miriallia."

Athrun hangs up.


	4. You Opened my Heart-Shaped Box like it was Pandora's

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is inspired by Nirvana's "Heart-Shaped Box" and the story of Pandora's Box.

"In music news today, Shinn Asuka, the frontman of indie rock band, 'The Impulse' takes another jab at Miguel Aiman! During an autograph session, he was asked by a fan on his thoughts on Aiman and his band's new direction in music. He responded bluntly with, 'It doesn't sound good. That's that.'

It has been allegedly reported that Asuka tried to sleep with Cagalli Yula Aiman multiple times. However, this has been denied by the couple. But who really knows the truth? There are speculations stating that _that_ was the reason why he was kicked out of the famous 'Le Creuset' band. Perhaps he is still bitter about this rock and roll fiasco?

Miguel Aiman's response to Shinn Asuka's statement is one to start a fire!"the pretty gossip host states, her voice a flourish of nagging curiosity and excitement. She disappears the moment a clip is brought upon on for the television audience.

Within the clip, there are flashes of light coming from cameras aimed at Miguel Aiman and his fellow band mate, Rusty Mackenzie. They are leisurely walking through the mass of paparazzi on a dark street, with bulky bodyguards surrounding them. Rusty has a hand shielding his eyes while Miguel merely squints at the white that flickers at both of them.

Miguel bears on a faded green jacket and dark denim pants, his hands are casually placed in the pockets. His slick blond hair falls straightly across his forehead in jagged strands, while his chin is tilted upwards. A confident smile devours his face.

From outside the frame, a man's wheezy voice is heard. "Rusty! Miguel! What do you think of Shinn's Asuka's insult?!"

Rusty looks up from his hand, his childish face looks confused for a brief second, but he grins a sloped grin, one that made his usual sheepishness apparent. "It's...kind of embarrassing... for him. I mean."

Miguel instantly grunts and the camera shot turns to him, "Shinn's a complete loser. He can't think of anything original so all he does is imitate our sound." His voice is bitter but a playful smirk easily masks it. "He always was just a small step behind the band," he murmurs as he shrugs nonchalantly.

The clip is switched back to the gossip host. Her mouth is opened widely, and the way the edges of her mouth are pointed suggest an amused smile. When she realizes that the camera is back on her, she regains her composure and giggles, "Oh, how long will this rivalry last? Two rockers are going head to head in a battle of words. I wonder if the words will transfer into their music!"

_This is ridiculous,_ Athrun thinks, as he drinks cold water from his glass. He is sitting on his couch, slumped over, watching the entertainment channel. It's a usual routine that's always practiced by paparazzi alike, although unlike them, Athrun watches without any glimmer of interest.

The shot jumps from the pretty host to the one that is male. He's looking into the camera, fully baring his white teeth as if they are fangs of wealth. Beginning to speak, his tone reeks of unfulfilling excitement, "Earlier today, in the Archangel District the sweet heart of Miguel –"

Athrun frantically reaches for the remote in front of him, panic stiffening up what feels like every joint in his entire body.

"I can't watch this... I can't," he says faintly, as the male host continues to speak. "How the hell is this already on TV...? How the fuck is this..."

" – Cagalli Yula Aiman is quite the contrast compared to her edgy rocker husband. Without a doubt, her kindness to the paparazzi has outshone most celebrities in the past. She has even saved a young paparazzo's camera from shattering into a million pieces! This paparazzo is quite a lucky man!"

_Quite a lucky man?_ Athrun finally reaches the remote and stabs the 'off' button with his thumb. The screen flashes to black, and he is left with a darkened reflection of himself.

Staring blankly at the dark screen, he pays no attention to his tired eyes or his disheveled hair, or the fact that the clothes on his gaunt body are more wrinkled than hands that have been dipped in water.

He takes another swig from the glass, gulping down the cold stream of water. It cools him, but temporarily.

Its 3:47 am in the morning and Athrun cannot sleep even though drowsiness possesses the back of his eyes and his mind. A headache knocks at his skull, but the muted pain is ignored by him. _This isn't real, I'm not in the media. This can't be real,_ he forces himself to believe.

Getting up from the couch, with the glass in hand, he walks over to the kitchen sink and places the glass beside it. His right hand still grips the glass while his sight roams over the small droplets of water that resides inside of it.

He stays there, just like that...frozen and aimlessly looking through its transparency.

Minutes pass. And nothing else appears in his dull mind.

Stare and ...stare and... stare.

Gradually, the headache and the drowsiness vanish, seemingly evaporated by vacancy.

_Keep your mind a blank slate._ Yet the mantra doesn't even need to make an appearance.

You're empty.

You're empty.

You're empty.

Just like the glass.

Only disappearing droplets of you remain.

A ring of his phone cuts through the state of suspended existence.

He answers, not entirely aware of what just happened.

"What do you want?" he grumbles, clutching the phone tightly.

" _Hey, don't sound so mad, man. Can you do me a fav – "_

"No."

" _C'mon man, please. Help a buddy out. I need a place to stay."_

"I've already said no, Dearka."

" _I'm outside your door. I'll sleep outside of it if you don't let me in!"_

Then the knocking begins.

"Fine," Athrun says, hanging up the phone and then walking to the door. He slams it open.

He sees Dearka smiling meekly like a fool, with a pillow and a camera bag in his right arm. "Yzak's bitchy girlfriend is over at our place... and Miriallia refuses to give me a place to stay and I can't sleep in my van, it smells like stale cigarettes," he explains, while scratching the back of his head.

Athrun only sighs. The minutes of his vacant state seem to be so far away now, unable to be retained, like sand slipping through fingers, each grain can not remain in one place.

"I'm sorry for waking you up or anything. But dude, you're the only person I can rely on."

A little tweak of his lips and Athrun is scowling. "I wasn't sleeping."

"Figures." Dearka shoves pass Athrun, and throws his pillow on his couch and places his camera bag on the table. Stretching his body across the couch, he yawns.

Athrun closes the front door and quickly locks it. The headache sharply returns as soon as his hand touches the brass knob of his bedroom.

"Are you feeling better?" Dearka asks.

"Yes," he replies, snappishly.

"Oh...okay."

Athrun then hears Dearka weakly chuckle. "Well...the way you acted earlier...kinda sounds like she had a legit affect on you... just a word of advice Athrun... don't get attached to celebrities. They're not real people, if you know what I mean."

Athrun opens his bedroom door, and before he closes it he says to Dearka, "Then people like us aren't real either."

Walking into his bedroom, he falls onto his bed and tightly closes his eyes, waiting for his consciousness to slip away.

* * *

Autumn became as brittle as corpses bones. When heavy snowflakes tethered the campus grounds, the bones of autumn shattered. The colours of left over leaves turned into the dullest of bronze, while the blinding whiteness of snow thoroughly hid them.

Athrun and Cagalli threaded along a snow buried path, one that was imprinted with multiple boot marks. Sparse trees spread throughout the sides of the path, its branches were like naked arms, frozen with frost.

Whenever the chill of winter scratched at Cagalli's face, she would shiver and pull her burgundy parka closer to her body. And then she'd adjust the wool beanie that nestled on top of her head.

Athrun, on the other hand, seemed unaffected by the cold. Despite only wearing a leather jacket and a thick grey scarf, he did not shiver nor did any bit of redness appear on his face. His ears were perked up to the sound of Cagalli's teeth clattering endlessly. The loud clicking diminished the howl of winter's winds.

He kept a side long stare at her, watching her visible breath swim into the air in tiny waves. It looked as though small bits of smoke bloomed out from those lips. It was mesmerizing to watch her, and he wondered how it would look if there was a cigarette between her lips.

"I swear, if I freeze to death, you're responsible!" She shoved her naked hands in the pockets of her coat. "I can't even feel my body."

A smile quickly formed on his face. "I'd say that's the best part."

Her eyebrows furrowed and her frost bitten mouth attempted to frown, but the tiny tremor in her upper lip gave away the bewilderment she felt.

He shrugged. "When your whole body is used to the cold, you forget about your body temperature. So when a bit of warmth touches your skin, you notice the biggest difference... It's really all about comparing and contrast. Light and dark, negative space and positive space."

Cagalli didn't respond. She was staring at the trees in front of her, eyes narrowed in contemplation. She then said, in a dull tone, "You're strange."

A chuckle came out from him. "It's an interesting feeling, you just got to try to notice it from time to time."

He reached into his pocket, and pulled out a cigarette from its packet. He held it between his index and middle finger while his other hand grabbed the lighter from the back pocket of his denim pants.

"Care to light up my cigarette, Cagalli?"

She eyed the white stick amid his fingers, and then at him. "Fine, but I told you, smoking is bad for your health."

"Who are you? My mom?"

"Oh shut up and give me the lighter."

He threw it over to her, smiling.

With her thumb over the small grey wheel, she spun it and it sparked immediately. Cagalli held her thumb there for more than a second, watching the flame momentarily glimmer as though it were a cracked diamond.

"Feel it?" Athrun asked.

"What do you mean?"

"The heat against your fingers."

She paused, allowing the small source of heat seep into her fingertips. Slowly, Athrun saw a smile develop on her lips.

"Oh, I actually notice it!" She lightly laughed, covering her mouth with a hand, while the lighter remained lit in the other. "You didn't have to make me use the lighter for me to notice a difference, we could just walk inside a hot cozy building!"

He laughed at that, feeling the hollows of his cheeks warm up.

Over the past three months, he felt...considerably happy.

Every single time he smiled, or even laughed, a shot of bliss coursed through his body. It was like the exhilarating feeling of leaping off a cliff and staying suspended in the air for a moment, right before you hit the waters.

Athrun knew exactly why he felt this high.

* * *

He was lying down on the cold carpet ground with a duvet wrapped around his body, and a pillow beneath his head.

Athrun wasn't sleeping in his bed tonight. Someone else occupied it. That kept his mind half awake even when his body screeched for rest. Glancing up at the digital clock beside his bedroom door, it read: _2:17 am._ The red numbers beamed at him, mockingly.

Athrun shut his eyes tightly, and turned away from the bed beside him.

He heard her breathing. The sound was soft and gradual like spring winds during a warm day, only noticeable if you focused on it.

He shifted his body again, facing upwards, while adjusting the duvet that acted like a cocoon to his figure.

"Hey... Athrun," he heard her whisper, her voice clearer than his mind. "I can't sleep."

He flinched. "I thought you were sleeping this whole time," he whispered back.

The bed made a creaking noise, and he saw Cagalli's head peak out from the edge of it, she was staring directly at him, her blonde hair falling over her cheeks.

The darkness of night and the natural moonlight peered out from the closed slits of the blinds. They gave little light to her face. Even then, it gave way to illusions, illusions that made her eyes look larger and her cheekbones appear too prominent.

"You know..." she said slowly. "I could sleep on the couch outside the room. You can take your bed back if it's hard for you to sleep on the floor."

"No, it's okay, I'm fine down here... and if Tolle – my roommate, just found a random girl on our couch, he would probably get the wrong idea."

"And what would that be?"

Athrun could feel his weak body heat up. He wondered if she could see the blush on his face. "N-nothing," he quickly replied.

"Okay weirdo."

The bed creaked again, and then he saw Cagalli's sock covered feet hover close to his face. "Come sit with me," she said, no longer whispering.

Athrun glanced at the clock again, it read: _2:20 am_.

He tossed the duvet away from his body and got up, feeling his muscles groan. He sat down beside Cagalli, who now had her legs folded.

She stared at Athrun with her seemingly big eyes and he stared at her back, knowing that his lids drooped over his own. They stayed like that, with their long gazes entrapped in each other, until Cagalli spoke again.

"Let's talk until we fall asleep."

"I've never heard of anyone sleeping while sitting up."

"Then let's lie down," she said while yawning. She sluggishly moved to the furthest side of the small bed and then slid under the covers. With his head turned, Athrun watched her.

His brain wasn't at one hundred percent, and he knew that. Whenever the mind was close to sleep, the capabilities of having second thoughts disappeared like they never existed at all.

He decided to lie down next to her, not caring if they were face to face. He was so tired, his bones protested against him and his head felt so heavy. He could pass out at any second.

Athrun saw her eyes, gazing at him so intently. He couldn't see the colour of them, yet it didn't matter as much. He unconsciously closed his own.

"Don't fall asleep on me now..."

"Okay," he mumbled, "I'm listening... my eyes are just closed."

"I'll pinch your nose if you sleep before I do."

He smiled, wondering in his mind what kind of face she was making at him. All he had to do was open his eyes.

"Athrun, I just wanted to say thanks."

"You already said thanks earlier."

"I know but, you walked all the way to my dorm at twelve am in the morning and picked me up and you let me stay in your bed...that-that means a lot to me."

"That's what friends do... friends save friends from drunk people," he murmured tiredly, hearing his voice fade towards the end of his sentence.

"I-I know...but that's not, I don't know...something has been bothering me – well not bothering me in that way but...it's been keeping me awake," she stumbled with her words, and Athrun could sense the nervousness in them.

He opened his eyes, desiring to see how she looked.

She was still facing him, but not as close as she was before.

Cagalli gasped at seeing that his eyes were open to her. She instinctively pulled the white bed sheet over her mouth and nose, looking like a child afraid of the bogeyman.

With his voice slurred by lethargy, he asked, "What's been keeping you awake?"

She didn't answer.

Minutes passed without them saying another word to each other, and Athrun turned away from her then, thinking that they would continue in the morning. The curiosity that he would have felt if he was wide awake did not come by to him.

With eyes fully closed, his mind drifted away to mangled thoughts of cameras, of Cagalli putting a cigarette in his mouth, of her breath looking like the smoke he enjoyed seeing... of himself as a younger teenager taking photos with a DLSR starter kit...it was a whirl of memories meshing as one scene, quickly switching to others. A blur of memories became made up, the consciousness disappeared inconspiciously ... an existence fell apart.

"Athrun." Her quiet voice woke him from the second he was about to slip into his mind's inexistence. "...how do you feel about me?"

The exhaustion of his entire being convinced him that her words were just a fabrication thought up by his imagination.

Within imagination and dreams, you can do anything, say anything. Consequences meant nothing.

"Reach into the drawer beside you," he uttered lowly, as his eyes peeked open at her.

He witnessed her sitting up, with her hair tousled over and her body a slim, dark silhouette. She pulled the drawer open and then grabbed the single item inside of it.

The red camera glinted from the tiny sliver of light. She looked at him then, and he merely smiled at her. "I don't need that anymore, Cagalli."

She wordlessly turned on the camera, and the tiny lenses buzzed out from the surface. The screen lit up her face, revealing the eyes that had shrunken from fatigue. The colour of light changed in her speckled eyes every time she flicked through a different image.

Athrun dozed off, burying his face into the pillow.

"These...these pictures are mainly of me...I don't get it."

He simply grinned. When he spoke, his voice was drunk with drowsiness. "You said so yourself, the more you examine something, the more beautiful it gets... I found you beautiful before you even let me take photos of you."

Athrun breathed in tenderly, closing his eyes. "Now you know how I feel. Goodnight, Cagalli."

Suddenly... without warning, her lips touched his.

He felt her hesitance and uncertainty, it was as though she were experimenting with the feel of her lips against his, wondering if they would collide or meld softly. That charmed him into intoxicated confidence.

Athrun's fingers crawled into her tangled hair, and her hands wandered into his.

He tasted the mint toothpaste lingering in her breath. He felt the wetness of her lips, inviting him to stick his tongue in for exploration.

Risking it, he did just that and she responded back, all that hesitance gone in just a few seconds.

Was he dreaming?

No, he realized, he wasn't.

Her sensual lips were like the water's tides, they dragged him back to the shore of reality, urging him to escape an ocean that drowned him in unconscious dreams.

His whole being was reawakened for her, as hers was for his.

When they had finished, Athrun saw the dim sheen of her teeth, indicating a sweet smile.

"Goodnight," she whispered in his ear.

"Goodnight."

* * *

Dearka is sprawled on the floor, his hand covering his nose. Blood spurts out of his nostrils, dripping down over the ridges of his fingers to the bottom of his chin. His widened eyes are looking deliriously at Athrun. "What the hell man?!" he screams tortuously.

"Don't touch my things, please," Athrun says desperately, his fist opening. He stares at the blood that cakes his knuckles. He feels the air from his lungs disappear.

"Why'd you punch me?! You really have some serious fucking issues!"

Athrun looks blankly from Dearka to the small wooden box that was toppled over beside him. Photographs have leaked out of the open box, littering the floor like scattered bugs.

Some are flipped over, revealing stolen images that he had forgotten he even had.

He casts his eyes down on them, and then away.

Dearka picks up a photograph with his bloody fingers, and glances at it briefly. "Who is this?" he asks, looking back up at Athrun.

"No one," he mumbles as he bends down and begins picking up the photos.

When his fingers touch the photos, he could feel his entire heart unnervingly shudder in his ribs.

He sucks in his breath as he holds a photograph of Cagalli, smiling a genuine smile while her eyes are bright with liveliness. She appears to be sitting on the white sheets of a bed, her hair fuzzed with knots while her hand is holding onto a bigger hand, one that is pale.

From the framing of the shot, one could tell that whoever was behind the lenses was lying down in the bed with her.

"Who is this?" Dearka repeats, grabbing another photo from the ground. "Is this an ex-girlfriend?" He wipes his nose, accidentally smudging blood all over the edges of his cheeks. Scrutinizing the photo further, Dearka's jaw instantaneously drops. "This looks like – "

"Cagalli Yula Attha," Athrun says, his voice barely audible. "At least... that was her name when I knew her."

Dearka stares at Athrun, his mouth as wide as his eyes. "Holy fucking shit... holy fucking shit!" The more he talks the less he notices the blood that flows down his nose to his mouth. "You're not fuckin' with me right?"

Athrun reaches down and picks up more photos, his hands scatters through them. There is a pained expression on his face. "I don't want to talk about it," he says, catching glimpses of a younger Cagalli, one that was once his.

He silently takes each photo from the ground, ignoring the shocked expression from Dearka's face.

"I had a feeling you knew her from before..."

Athrun stops, and looks at Dearka, the muscles in his face struggle to keep a neutral appearance. But he feels his eyes glossing over, and his lips even tremble.

Dearka stares down at the photo in his own hand, and then he wipes his nose with the other, smearing blood on his upper lip. "I guess this is the last photo for the box," he says flatly. He flicks the photograph over to Athrun.

It lands face up on the floor.

One glance and Athrun turns away from Dearka, placing an arm over his stinging eyes.


	5. Go Away Grace Kelly

Athrun lingers outside on his balcony, watching the grey clouds ominously roam over the reddish sky of the rising sun. The grey mutes the vibrancy of its streaks, as though attempting to hide the colour.

Wispy petals of smoke fly from his mouth when he swiftly takes the cigarette out.

The veins of his eyes run red like strings of blood churning in waters. His eyes have become small from the pink swollenness that surrounds them. They feel dry and wounded from leaking out tears.

Berating himself in his mind, he wonders how he ever let himself become so vulnerable.

God, he felt _so_ weak.

How could he let someone affect him so emotionally? He feels like he lost control of himself, but if Athrun is to be honest with himself, he would know that he lost control a long time ago.

"...Sinatra once said 'the cigarettes you light one after another won't help you forget her'," Dearka says, coming from behind Athrun.

After he leans over the railings with his elbows propped, and his lit cigarette resting in his fingertips, Athrun curtly replies, "Then drugs and alcohol will do." Taking another long drag he adds on, unfeelingly, "And sex."

Dearka clasps a hand over Athrun's shoulder, grinning. "Now that's the spirit! I know a couple of drug dealers here and there, and we can find girls who want to get laid!"

Athrun half-heartedly smirks. "Yeah, right."

"Alright, alright..." Dearka waves his hands in the air. "You caught me red handed. To be honest with ya, I'm actually straight edge. The only thing I ever get high or drunk on is being a paparazzo." He says it with such ease as though it is something so normal. "And girls? Well I'm actually a relationship type of guy."

"Interesting..." Athrun says uncaringly, lightly tapping the end of the cigarette on the railing. The black ashes fall, never reaching the ground because the drafts carry them away.

Dearka stands beside him, with his back against the railing. He whistles an unfamiliar tune and brushes a hand through his wind blown hair. "Yeah, that's just a little fact of the day about the Dearka Elsman!"

From the side, Athrun watches Dearka with observing eyes. When he sees the whisper of a smile on his mouth, he notices just how carefree this man is.

Nothing weighs heavy in his mind, nothing straps him backwards. He's exactly like a balloon released from a child's hand, going wherever the winds bring him, not giving a single damn about where the hell he might end up.

If the winds are rough, Dearka would take them on with a laugh, and if they are soft, he would be thankful.

From the day Athrun met Dearka, he just knew that this guy was perfectly content with _what_ he was.

It angers Athrun, just slightly.

How could anyone possibly be happy about being a tabloid photographer? There is no such thing as artistic value in the images conceived. The images are of celebrities, looking glamorous or disastrous. They are the objects of laughter and scrutiny yet also the objects of desire and admiration. These people...they are not people to look up to, but people to compare yourself to. They're here to sell you an idea, an idea that you are never good enough – that you are only good enough unless you make your name made.

That's what Athrun always believed, and will always believe. But here he is, purging his world in the hell fire of Hollywood, looking for an angel that isn't there.

Dearka keeps whistling joyfully even when his nose is flaked with blood. He taps his empty hands on the railing, staying with the beat of his tune.

Athrun sees all this, and he looks back to his own hands. His right hand holds a cigarette, hovering over the edge of his high balcony. One careless opening of the fingers and it would fall, yet it wouldn't disappear into the air like the ashes.

"Dearka," he mumbles, staring out into the faraway beach with the palm trees. From his view, he sees small dots of people, moving like insects in slow motion across the sand.

"Yeah? What's up?" Dearka lazily turns his head to him.

Athrun could feel the breeze lightly graze his hair from his face, and he stares at Dearka then. Eyes steady.

"Do you ever feel bad about being a tabloid photographer?" He knows the answer, but he asks this anyways, wondering if it would gear Dearka into Athrun's mindset. There is barely a chance.

Dearka momentarily frowns at him. But he immediately gives Athrun a half smile. "No... because it's fun to say 'I take pictures of celebrities fuckin' up for a living'."

"I'm being serious," Athrun grunts, looking away.

Dearka makes a sound that's a crossbreed between a sigh and a groan. "As usual." He pauses to think about it. Then he speaks, his tone soft, "Sometimes I do, but most of the times I don't, 'cause I always remember, celebrities choose to be celebrities, so they gotta deal with all the shit thrown at them and having their overrated lives as our entertainment."

Athrun doesn't know how to respond.

The only thing that comes into the recesses of his draining mind is Cagalli.

_Did you choose this life for yourself?_

_Or did fate somehow conspire against you into a world of fame?_

"It's obvious you're not happy, Athrun," Dearka abruptly says.

Athrun lets a small scornful laugh slip from his mouth. "Really? What gave it away?" he sarcastically asks.

"This," Dearka says bluntly as he pulls something out of his back pocket. He holds the photo between his fingers as though it is a joint.

Athrun doesn't even bother to look until Dearka says, "What the hell happened to this guy?"

* * *

Rain hit the pavement ground, sounding like spit sputtering out of a million mouths. Briefly it became soft, yet the loudness of the rain still resonated in the air, desiring to be heard.

The gutters sipped the water from the sun barren sky, while its droplets collided in multiple rings in its stream.

A quick whoosh and a couple was seen rushing down the high slope of the street with the vintage fronted stores. The water from the wet sidewalk seeped into the soles of their shoes with each step. But it was nothing compared to the way their clothes clung onto their bodies like a second skin.

Down the slope they ran, whisking through passerby holding umbrellas while the couple held onto each others hands. Small waves of murky water splashed behind them.

"Where are we going?" Cagalli asked, as she was being pulled along the unfamiliar street. Athrun didn't seem to hear her as he dodged a grumbling man to their left. Since Cagalli lagged behind him, she nearly bumped into the man.

"Hey! Watch where you two are going you stupid kids!" the man callously shouted from behind them.

Athrun spared him a single "Sorry" before turning to her and chuckling. "People tend to get sour when it rains, huh?"

Cagalli was looking back at the man who seemed to disappear in the distance. She looked to Athrun, with a small glare remaining on her face. "I was going to tell him to 'fuck off'."

"Good thing you didn't."

The rain started to become a drizzle, humming lowly in the atmosphere.

The drops of rain looked like needles stabbing the pavement while the light of the sun peered through the dispersing clouds. Colour emerged in the narrowed street, and the wet signs of the aged stores reappeared to whoever paid attention.

Athrun and Cagalli continued to run down the slope, it's downwards momentum barely took the breath out of their lungs.

"I'm taking you to my favourite spot in Heliopolis City," he called out to her, squeezing her hand. "I was a city kid, so I explored this place a lot."

They reached the bottom of the slope, and the street was divided into two. Behind the split was a memorial park with darkened wooden benches spread far apart from each other. Thin trees encircled the area, they were slick with rain, and their individual leaves shone like emeralds.

"Here we are," Athrun said, crossing the empty road with Cagalli.

The couple stepped onto the grass, their feet sinking into the mushy dampness. There was a bench that faced the street they had just run through.

He let go of her hand and sat on that bench alone, gazing up at the slope with softened eyes.

The stores looked like townhouses lined up against each other. They were weathered down by the seasons of every year; some stores had paint peeling off the edges of their windows, while others had faded bricks.

Black lampposts and bicycles stood rooted on the sidewalk and there were a few people walking up and down the slope.

The rain eventually stopped, and from where Athrun sat, he could see the top of the slope with the sky resting idly above it. Small grey clouds moved across it, looking like feathery jelly fish on top of a smear of orange that had peaking streaks of pink. It was strange. They didn't seem to look like they belonged there. Yet, the roughness of grey against the smoothness of amber and cerise complimented one another.

Athrun felt a sense of calmness envelope his entire body as he looked at the nature of the scene in front of him.

The wideness of the sky and the narrowness of the sloped street had always brought him to a quiet place in his mind.

As a teenager he would sit on the bench, and watch the dealings of the street unravel. He would stare at the sky, and then look at the people who walked along the sidewalk – casually minding their own business. To him, whenever he sat at the bottom of the slope, he felt that he would see a still life image – a still life image that changed every single day he sat there. It was always the same view but with different colours of the sky, different kinds of people...

He usually brought his camera when he sat on the bench. He'd peer through it, but he would never take a photo.

Athrun just liked observing and making scenarios in his head about the strangers he'd never meet. They were nameless to him and their faces only momentary. The thoughts inside their minds or wherever they were heading was eternally a mystery to him. It would amaze him, just how many people knew nothing of each other, or of him, but yet they all shared the same space at the same time.

"I could understand why this is your favourite spot, Athrun," he heard Cagalli say to him.

He hadn't realized that she had sat right beside him. He had been too busy consumed with his own thoughts. Athrun glanced at her, and saw that she was looking directly at the scene that he had been watching. She had on a close lipped smile.

"It's really beautiful, the sky after rain. It looks especially beautiful from this view," she murmured as she twisted her soaked hair. The water dripped from the pointed end. "Picture worthy, don't you think?"

Athrun smiled, no longer looking at her but at the street and the sky. "Yeah...it is," he said softly as though it were his first time taking the scene in.

Cagalli put a hand over Athrun's dampened satchel, and took out his DSLR camera. She placed it on her lap after pressing the 'on' button.

They sat there quietly, basking in the disguised solitude of nature on a barely busy street.

After a while, Cagalli spoke, her voice soothing, "I always wanted to know, what got you into photography?"

"I..." he stopped, feeling the cool air flitter onto his drenched body. "I... just loved the way a photograph could capture a moment before it disappears." As he said this, he saw a man in a trench coat, bent down on his knees, zipping up the yellow raincoat of his daughter. He was chuckling joyously while the daughter said some words that Athrun couldn't hear but knew were 'thank you.'

"Day by day everything changes," he continued, his words so honest. "It changes so gradually we don't even know it until we step back and look at ourselves..."

The father took the daughter in his arms, embracing her small body.

Athrun smiled, not knowing how arduously it glowed. "Usually photos will tell us how much has changed, but because everything in a photo is unchanged, it just brings us back, maybe to a time that we had long forgotten." He didn't realize it then, but his voice contained flecks of passion that had long been buried inside of him. They had begun to resurface as he spoke, "Capturing moments before they're gone...I want to be able to do that. Moments that just seem so ordinary are actually the moments that mean the most."

He suddenly heard the flicker of his camera go off, and he withdrew his gaze from the street and the sky. Turning to Cagalli, he saw the black camera slowly move from her eyes and face.

That's when he captured it – a moment that would stay permanent in his mind.

The eyes that gazed at him were softer, gentler... it was a look he'd seen before, but never directed towards him.

Athrun had seen it all the time... stolen looks of adoration, looks that were only reserved for one other person. That one person would never notice because they would be doing something as simple as speaking about their dreams, or smiling at a thought.

All of that simplicity changed the beholder's eyes.

Within those kinds of eyes, infatuation didn't exist.

_I love you,_ existed in them.

It was then that Athrun knew.

Cagalli loved him.

* * *

He's smiling.

The teenage boy on the brink of adulthood is smiling.

His dark hair is stuck onto his cheeks, looking inky against his white skin. His beaming, half open mouth indicates a voice that speaks of genuine passion, a rarity of all sorts. His softened eyes are brighter than the light that appears behind him.

He's looking out into the distance as though he had seen the loveliest miracle in his life.

In that moment, the boy is happy.

Beautifully happy.

The wilting feeling inside of Athrun dies. He stares at the photograph in his hand once more, being reminded of a happier time.

_This is who you used to be._

The boy in the photograph is suspended in time, trapped inside a photo.

Athrun quietly says, more to himself than to the person beside him, "He's dead."

But he slips the photograph into the pocket of his sweater, wondering if he could ever revive him.

"That guy's not dead yet," Dearka suddenly says, his tone light. "If you're happy once, then you could be happy again. I guarantee it." He gives him a small sympathetic smile. "Tell me, what made you so happy in that photo? It wasn't just Cagalli was it?"

Athrun takes the photograph from the pocket of his sweater and stares at it once more, there's longing in his eyes.

After a while he finally speaks.

"I remember."

For the first time, in those two days, he genuinely smiles even though he feels something clutching the base of his throat.

* * *

The empty waters are awash with bluish violet, the colour is like a developing bruise, while the sand is its skin. Its waves dither onto the shore, lulling in the reflection of the dark sky.

Beside Athrun, Dearka sits down onto the white sand, digging his bare toes in. He proclaims to him, "Wow... this beach is nice." He presses his fingers through the grains of sand and then asks, "Was this the beach?"

Athrun knows what he's referring to: the candid photo where he caught a glimpse of what Cagalli used to be, where her smile intoxicated him into believing that she was the same girl that he used to kiss under the waters.

"Yes, this is it," he dully responds as he gazes onward.

The edges of Dearka's lips go up. "...Sometimes I feel like people only take photos of her just to replicate what you did. But those are just my thoughts, they don't mean a thing." He closes his eyes then, and leans back, his head tilted to the side.

"I guess so," Athrun mumbles, zipping up his sweater. "But maybe I'm just the same as them."

"The paparazzi?"

"Yeah."

"Nah, you're different."

"How so?" The wind whistles against the back of Athrun's neck and it reminds him of the exact moment he clicked the button. It had made a rare moment of Cagalli – his Cagalli – become eternal. He pulls his hood up, to shield himself from reliving that memory. Allowing that memory to come through would have turned it's sweetness into pain in just a of matter seconds.

"You hate this business so much," Dearka continues. "It's written all over your face, Miriallia and I always see it when we scout for celebrities. But when it's that Cagalli Yula Aiman chick, you seem more...I dunno... determined. It's like you're looking for something."

Athrun places his hands into his sweater pockets and then breathes in the salt air.

"I'm not looking for anything," yet as he says that, visions of him frantically photographing her trickle into his sight. The lift of the camera, the sight of her in the viewfinder, the twist of a 50mm lenses, the click, the flash of white and then the numbing feeling of his disregard for a photo he just caught. It becomes obvious to him then. _I search for her_ , _in every flashing light._

Dearka's tone of voice shifts. "I'll believe you this time. But, from now on be honest with me, okay?"

"Okay."

"Now... since we're starting. Let me ask you a question." He looks at Athrun at an attempt to catch his gaze. However, Athrun doesn't get caught inside it.

"Are you okay?" he asks carefully, as though that very question might break Athrun.

Without knowing it, he touches his hood, pinching the fabric between his fingers. "I don't know anymore," he answers.

"You don't seem okay."

"I know," he says flatly.

Dearka rubs his bruised nose and winces at the pain. "Laughin' like a maniac in the van, punching me in the nose for opening a wooden box... you're not okay, and you know it." The way he says it is almost like a harsh accusation against him.

Athrun begins to feel something then, some strange faraway anger that is threatening to crawl through his body. It feels as though a scorching heat is about to slither onto his skin. "Then I'm not okay," he mutters, each word is as bitter as the truth that never resides in his head.

"Just forget about her," Dearka says exasperatedly. "You're letting some bitch – who probably doesn't even give a shit about you, control your life. Get her out of your mind already!"

He grits his teeth and says, with his voice low and desperate, "How could I forget about her? I see her goddamn face everywhere. Magazines in the newsstands, on telev – "

"You still have old photos of your ex-girlfriend," Dearka interrupts sharply. "You chose to become a paparazzo and you always get a shot of her. Don't you think that's extreme, Athrun? You're hurting yourself, you're not making yourself anymore happy. But you remember why you were so happy in that photo, right? That's why we're here on this beach. But you chose this location, even though it reminds you of her. You can't let go, can you?"

"I told you already, I can't!" He hears his voice edge towards a yell, but what he doesn't realize are the clenched fists in his pockets.

"No," Dearka firmly states. "You can. Believe me. You just need some willpower."

"I don't want to talk about this anymore," Athrun quickly says. He hurriedly puts the strap that holds his DSLR around his neck. "Let's just take photos."

After getting up from his seating position, he begins walking along the shoreline. Dearka doesn't follow, but from a glance Athrun could see his forehead crinkle into a frown and his eyes cast onto the waves. It startles him, to think that Dearka cares about his well being.

He begins to think, the only person that ever truly cared about him was –

He stops his thoughts. He doesn't want her to drift into his mind. Having her in his thoughts is like swallowing deadly nightshade.

Athrun looks around at his surroundings to distract himself.

It's then that he notices that there's barely anyone else wandering the shoreline... except for one couple. They walk towards him, with their arms around each others waists. The man is in a classic Hawaiian t-shirt and shorts, his untamed hair sticks out conspicuously while a camera dangles from his free arm. The woman's head lies in the crook of his neck.

As they walk by him, Athrun could only stare at the woman. Her relaxed aura strikes him, and he is left feeling disturbed rather than soothed by her soft and delicate face.

They glance up at him then, and something in their expression changes.

He sees it, a look of recognition in the strangers' eyes. But he ignores it immediately and walks on, acting like he never saw it. Within minutes he could forget about the look in their eyes, he can dismiss it as nothing noteworthy and the moment would be gone forever. But behind him, amidst the light crash of the waves, he hears the man's voice call out to him.

Stopping in the sand, Athrun turns his head around.

The man smiles at him then and the woman beside him reflects the same smile.

"You look like you're good with a camera," the man says in a friendly matter. "You wouldn't mind taking a photo of my wife and I?"

"Sure," he says as the man hands over his camera. _Probably some tourists,_ he thinks to himself.

"Thank you," the woman says, her voice flourishing with otherworldly kindness. "Andy and I really appreciate it."

Athrun nearly stutters, "No problem." He lifts the camera to his eye, as Andy and the woman position themselves away from the waves. Behind Athrun the sun's clouded light falls onto his back, illuminating the couple within the viewfinder.

The woman leans into Andy, her dark hair with the eccentric streaks of orange fall over his shoulder. She looks at the camera, and it seems as though she is staring directly into Athrun's eyes.

The woman's rouge lips evolve into a tantalizing smile.

It's sickens Athrun's stomach but he can't place a justified reason as to why.

"One, two..." he begins, his throat dry.

Andy is smirking then, his hold on the woman slackens.

"Three."

He clicks, the viewfinder blinks black.

"Is that our guy, Aisha?"

Athrun moves the camera away from his eyes and sees Andy and the woman – Aisha, staring at him, the recognition in their eyes remains, no longer just a flash.

"That's him," she murmurs peacefully. Her bangs are swept to the side by the wind. "That's Athrun Zala."

Andy's smirk intensifies into a lop-sided grin. "Mr. Zala, we'd like to speak to you."

Athrun opens his mouth, but words can't find their way through.

"It concerns Cagalli," Aisha says.

The trigger inside Athrun's head is pulled.

"Cagalli?" The camera in his hand collapses onto the sand below. Aisha and Andy don't even bother to look at it.

Aisha offers him another sweet smile. "Yes. She'd like to see you again."

* * *

Athrun doesn't know what the hell he's doing.

_"Are you sure you want to see her again? If I were you I wouldn't."_

The hallway he walks through is adorned with vague artistry. As he walks on, his hands begin to tremble and his breath becomes short. Every step feels heavy.

_"It'll be the last one to the right. The door will be unlocked. She refuses to come downstairs. She'd rather have people come to her. Cagalli's quite strange, isn't she? But you already know that."_

He reaches it.

When he puts his hand on the cold doorknob, he closes his eyes.

Why does he imagine her sleeping on their bed in that apartment they shared?

She's getting up now...loose red shirt and nothing under. Her short hair in knots and her eyes full of drowsiness. "Get in bed," she'd say, wiping her eyes. "I've missed you." But then she'd place his fingers between her thighs.

His own eyes fly open.

There's a sting to his fingers, a crippling howl in his veins. It keeps him frozen, stuck in the in-between, the in-between of his and her truth.

One turn of the knob does it and one slight push on the door.

Athrun doesn't know how he did it.

But he sees that the room is like a dome.

Shadows of different shades of black are layered onto the curved wall. Overlapping each other, but mainly overlapping the breath taking projection on the wall.

It's awash with colours, muted tones of pinks, purples, reds and oranges. They blend into each other, looking like an artist's rendition of the sky.

_Life doesn't imitate art._

_Art imitates life. But in a twisted, beautiful way that shows the true intentions of the artist._

In the center of it all, she stands, in a white dress, with her long hair smoothed down to the middle of her back.

Her eyes are peacefully closed and her face is bare except for the red that stains her lips.

Athrun steps in, walking towards her, his shadows stretch across the wall atop of hers.

He doesn't feel anything as they come face to face.

Numbness makes a scream in his chest.

When the door closes behind him, her eyes blink open.

"Ath-Athrun?" she stutters, choking on his name, uttering it like a question that doesn't need answering.

He sees something in her eyes then: a painful sadness that he never knew existed.

But it withers away as quickly as it came.

Cagalli's face contorts into a predetermined smile, her eyes become as gentle as a feather ripped from a bird's wings.

It's sickeningly peaceful.

"Athrun," she repeats, this time she doesn't choke on his name. She begins to say something else, yet as her lips move, Athrun can't hear the words that float out.

_How could she change so quickly?_ he thinks to himself.

Athrun watches as her lips gracefully move with her expression soft like they are in her photos, even her eyes show the same shy delicacy that attracted those who were willing to exploit her.

However, what's being burned in his mind are those eyes - they erase what's in front of him. He can only see it, the excruciating melancholy that was being cloaked by that false gentleness.

He wants to shatter that cloak, to rip open her seams.

"Cagalli..." he says slowly, hearing his voice shudder. "You killed me."


	6. Killing Nancy

_Two Years Prior, 1 Year after Separation_

Sometimes, when she would awaken, there would be a fleeting second of unawareness to her reality, but when reality would settle into her consciousness, an ache would also settle in her chest. It was a distant ache, like lightning during the nighttime: something that could easily destroy you yet it was never close enough to.

She would realize that the ache was there like it was a white flash of lightning, and then she'd acknowledge it fully for at least a couple of moments; curious as to how painful it would be if she were to let that ache devour her body.

As soon as she forced herself to look at the man that she called, 'the love of my life', the ache would then transform into a heavy void.

On that particular morning, this routine was no different.

Darkness had shrouded the world at 4:00 AM and for some reason, she had awoken from a dream that she could barely remember.

After turning to her side, she let her eyes roam over her husband's face, then she placed a finger to the top of his forehead, and traced down the middle until she reached the bottom of his chin. She had seemed to imagine it, his face splitting so grotesquely and exposing the blood and bone beneath his skin.

He hardly stirred at her touch.

She sat up in her opulent bed sheets, and thought to herself. _It'd be nice to be alone._

Over the past year, she had barely been left alone. Her life had become a whirlwind of events that didn't allow her to breathe. Every day, she'd either be with Aisha – her publicist, working on her image or she would be backstage at one of Miguel's shows, supporting him from the sidelines with her mere presence. Occasionally, she'd go to drug induced parties where booze was unlimited, and other days she would go to parties where pearls laced her chest. Soon enough, she had begun to feel like she had stolen another person's life. It had seemed that she was just watching her life unfold, behind a pair of eyes that didn't belong to her.

Luxury was not something she was used to. Sparkles, drugs and pristine glamour were a stark contrast to what she desired.

She wanted to feel a wild sensation, where the wind played with her hair and where living on the edge was more than only a day in her life. She had thought that being with a musician would provide that, a craziness that invoked the happiest emotion in her – thoughts of a happiness so strong that she wouldn't mind dying the next day.

…Cagalli had, indeed, felt that with another man.

She didn't need silver or psychedelic drugs when she was with him, but at that very moment of her life they were a good replacement, no matter how short-lived the bliss was.

Instinctively touching her eyes, she didn't feel any tears. _That's how it's supposed to be,_ she thought to herself.

She chose to gaze down at Miguel's sleeping form once again. The muscles of his face were relaxed, his cheekbones soft, his lips parted by the slightest, and all the while his eyes rolling side to side beneath his lids, like a snake moving inconspicuously under sand.

Cagalli realized that he was only calm in his sleep. Forcing herself to admire this rare form, she mumbled, "I love you."

It felt like a meager chore.

"I love you. I love you. I love you," she repeated, as though it would mimic the feelings she had for him from the beginning of their relationship.

She bent her body closer to his face, her frail strands of hair fell and tickled his cheeks. As she leaned in, she felt her breath quicken as though she were violating herself with a stranger. Tentatively, her lips grasped onto his.

His mouth was as dead as the lips of a rotting corpse, but her lips remained on them. She was so accustomed to doing these affectionate gestures while tricking her self into believing that she loved him.

Seemingly, the word liar was breathed from Miguel's lips into hers. Withdrawing her mouth, she stared at him again, her heart making hollow blows inside of her ribs. His face had changed from tranquility to perpetual anger. The clench of his jaws, the scrunch of his brows, and yet his eyes were still closed, rapidly moving side to side.

_He's dreaming,_ she thought, and her body relaxed.

She remained in her position, watching his chest rise then fall. His breath was soft. She waited, until she was sure that that awful word was not exhaled from his mouth.

"I'm going to leave you," Cagalli suddenly said, with her face still so close to his. She paused, and realized the heaviness of her words. "I'm... I'm leaving you," her low voice sounded like it was drowning.

There was no reaction, the anger in his face remained but it couldn't have been from her.

Breathing deeply, she pulled the bed sheet off of herself and stepped onto the marble floor. A chill blew over her naked body, she wrapped her arms around herself, trembling all over… whether it was truly from the cold or from that word that fell in her mouth, it was unknown to her.

After getting changed into a simple white dress that Aisha bought her, she grabbed a mini beat up radio and left the hotel that she and Miguel were staying in.

Cagalli didn't know where she was going but all she wanted was to get away from it all.

**x**

How ironic was it?

When Athrun and her separated she couldn't bear being by herself. She had been with him for four years... and she didn't know how to be alone anymore. Now she stood as a lone figure by the shore with the grains of sand slipping between her toes.

She listened to the lethargic drawl of a jazz singer streaming out of her battered radio, her voice sounded rustled with the echoing of the wraithlike strings of a violin. The sound tangled with the steady strum of the waves and the winds playfully swept her hair behind her. Cagalli smiled, gazing gently at the sea in front of her while the humble waters made their way to the shore, teasingly touching her feet, as if to say, 'come swim away forever'.

When she looked up at the sky, dawn had begun to break. The tinge of violet and the churning of cerise bled into one another, like watercolour paint dripping to the side of a canvas.

Every sunrise was different, she realized and it was eternally guaranteed to be there for her every day, yet she never took the time to look above herself. Having her feet so firmly placed on the ground of glamour had kept her eyes on forming a false image, in order to fuel someone else's dream.

Was it society's dream, to have her be gentle, and small?

God, what did that even mean to submit to that?

Oh, what she'd give to be at peace with her self.

...and what she'd give just to have honest solitude.

She always knew that if she were by herself, she'd be honest, honest to the point that she'd remember that she was not happy. Being with her new found others made her believe that she was blissful, that everything she had was everything that _all_ humans wanted.

Fame and fortune.

How shallow would it be to truly want that?

Feeling nature's peace shiver into her bones, she had finally decided to herself that she wanted to vanish with the art of the sky to become a part of it.

The sky coexisted with the likes of all the people in the world, offering familiarity and an opening to a new day, where there were no mistakes to be made yet. It was eternal, unlike her who was wasting away in an industry so hollow.

"Consume me," she whispered to its shifting hues.

She waited, with a smile on her face, while thinking of nothing, only feeling and seeing nature as it was, while letting all of her senses evaporate with the sands, flit into the sky and drown into the waters.

The sky gave her a cruel hope and it silenced her entire being...

Then, there was a crash in her ears that felt like the waves, and the sky above was beginning to bruise like sucking kisses on a person's skin.

"Athrun..." she breathed.

Suddenly, Cagalli felt the morning aches thrash back into her chest, and it hurt even more. It was like all the aches she ever felt about him decided to come back in multiple stabs, grinding through the bone and marrow of her body, leaving her wounded and bleeding from all the regret she thought she'd forgotten.

Her hand slapped onto her mouth.

_He_ was polluting her mind, but instead of pushing him away, she allowed him to stay.

"Oh God," she gasped, when she saw his face drift into her mind.

_Lips touching._

_Stolen smiles._

_A lust for each other's ecstasy._

_And then the empty look on his face._

The sky wasn't going to consume Cagalli.

Athrun was.

But...

she was okay with that.

After all, Cagalli was Athrun's once before.

If he were with her now, she wouldn't know what to do but… she'd want him to take her away, to throw her into the sky and have her become part of that masterpiece.

She turned her head by an inch, avoiding the skyline.

From the corner of her dampening eyes, she saw a hooded figure, walking away from her, like a god of death that changed its mind at last minute.

There was a secret hope that lit up like a cigarette inside of her. She inhaled that hope, knowing it would scratch her throat.

_Athrun._

She then fell to her knees, sinking into the sand, her entire body aching with sorrow.

_I miss you._

What a hurtful reminder.

* * *

Four days later the photo of her at the beach became iconic, aiding to the image she was trying to uphold.

If anyone doubted that Cagalli Yula Aiman was a serene, angelic beauty before, their doubts were gone by now.

Without either of them knowing it, Athrun Zala had stabbed the last nail in her coffin.

Inside that coffin was the corpse of a girl who almost reached a truth about herself, only to have it be taken away by a camera – a camera that acted like a scythe to her already rotting body.

* * *

Not even a word trembles out of her mouth.

What's left is this disturbing silence that fills the insides of both of them.

How could silence be so deafening to the ears?

It twists the sound waves into edged spikes, because the real noise is coming from the thoughts that suppress both their mouths from speaking.

Waiting, and waiting. Athrun's breath still shakes. His face attempts to restrain the dread that he feels underneath his skin.

How does he want her to react? He couldn't even begin to imagine... does he want her to break down into sobs? Or does he want her to deflect his words and inflict her own anger upon him?

All he knows is that her beautifully crafted facade has become painfully tiring to him.

To his dismay, the smile frighteningly stays on her lips. Yet, there's a slight change. Her rouge lips begin to quiver. She immediately bites her bottom lip to stop it, as if he would not notice. Athrun sees that her avoidant eyes are becoming as glossy as the sun's gleam against an ocean's surface.

That made up serenity is gradually falling apart.

He wonders in his mind: was he close to tearing open her seams?

Athrun could already feel his fingertips touching the imaginary thread.

"You..." she says, destroying the silence between them.

Her voice is a small, strangled whisper as she speaks, "...you really are horrible, Athrun."

The words are so piercing, they relentlessly curl inside his veins, making him want nothing more than to disappear right then and there, to dissipate into the faded colours on the wall.

Except…instead of disappearing, he lets out a sound that echoes a suffocated chuckle. _I'm not horrible_ he wants to say.

She peers up at him then, her eyes steadily travel down his face and to his torso, as if to take note that the person in front of her is real. Those pained eyes stop to the middle of his chest, resting there, taking a still image of him — or an image of the camera that hangs around his neck.

Athrun could only stare down at her, with tension in his slight smile as he sees her expression become hindered by the strokes of fading reds. Layers of the false and projected sky are hovering onto her body, leaving dark outlines of her shadow behind her. Cagalli looks as though she is part of that dawning sky, merging as one existential being. It's as if she is a hallucination standing before him caused by kaleidoscope drugs. It's all so peculiar in his mind. He begins to wonder, how does he look to her, behind the trickery of a nonexistent sky?

Shattering his reverie, she states, "You're a photographer." Athrun notices that there's a forlorn bitterness to her tone, it surprises him to hear her voice break into a naturalistic emotion.

"Yes, I am," he merely replies, as his fabricated smile vanishes slowly.

The thread that seamed the cloth of her serene, manufactured presence is slowly becoming undone he realizes.

Athrun couldn't tell if he is the one holding the loose thread, or if it is her.

"I'm happy for you," she murmurs, her voice returning to sugar coated tranquility while her curled fingers grip onto the ends of her short dress. The bones of her knuckles jut out uncannily beneath her skin. "You got what you always wanted."

He tries not to grit his teeth at those words. Her falsely sweet voice and that contained rage that vibrates in her knuckles makes him want to grasp onto the loose thread. There's determination within him to tear away the cloth that binds her into a bipolar dance of honesty and lies.

"You're not happy for me," he mutters, as he edges closer to her. Athrun expects her to move back, but she doesn't. She stays there, staring at him, her eyes empty of what she's truly feeling.

From the corner of his own eyes, he can see that his large shadows are hovering above the both of them as he moves. The closer he became, the more she would be in the consumption of his darkness, and the projected blushes of amber and rose would vanish from lingering on her.

It robs the ragged breath out of him as he recognizes how close their bodies are.

Slowly, Athrun reaches his arm out towards her. As he places his hand over her throat, her eyes widen underneath the black haze. There's a flicker of fear that reminds him of how vulnerable she can be.

His hand doesn't clutch her throat – they rest there, as though too weak to choke her. With his thumb, he lightly strokes the bottom of her neck… he catches her inhale sharply at his touch.

Her neck has always been sensitive, he knows this by the way his lips had touched that smooth expanse of skin, leaving marks that claimed both their lust.

Cagalli grasps onto his wrist, with her cold hands creating a heightened beat in his chest.

"If you're going to strangle me, then use both hands," she calmly says, her eyes returning from fear to emptiness.

She watches him, ever so observing of his face. Her lips don't tremble. Her face seems frozen under the cast of his shadow. The grimy lighting that resembles the sky still makes hints on her face and body, unveiling absolutely nothing. There's no emotions passing through her, she's as stagnant as a child's broken doll.

Is she beautiful at present?

No – she's torture and exasperation.

What can you do when the shape of porcelain is molded and hardened?

Nothing at all.

Failure never felt so heavy. He couldn't rip open her seams. The sincerity of her has vanished.

Cagalli has transformed permanently into sugar venom.

With his free hand, he pulls off her hands that hold his wrist.

As her dainty hands fall back to the sides of her dress, Athrun catches his other hand shaking on her neck.

Maybe if he choked her out, he'd be able to snuff out Hollywood's death wish out of her.

_No,_ he shakes his head, closing his eyes. _Fuck it. Accept it. She's gone._ He lets go of her neck as he thinks this.

Again. With eyes closed, she's there in his thoughts, her eyes that twinkle when she sees him, while her hair short enough for him to kiss her neck. But then suddenly her hair grows long, her eyes lose the spark and become hollow, and in his mind, she's this vacant beauty that has been robbed of the vivacity he fell in love with.

Opening his eyes, he looks past her to the projection of dawn. "I've been delusional," he says numbly."…this whole time."

When Athrun turns away from her, he misses something: A look in her face that should have been captured by his eyes, and kept still in his mind.


	7. Brando, Baby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is censored. The uncensored version is up on fanfiction . net.

_Two years prior, one year after separation.  The morning of the captured photograph._

The nineteen-year-old boy was stomping up the hotel stairs, his reddish eyes were glinting in fury as his hands tightly grasped onto the straps of his bass guitar case behind his back. His forehead was wrinkled while his mouth was undoubtedly turned downwards in a scowl.

When he reached the specific room that Rusty had said Miguel and Cagalli were staying in, he paused to take a deep breath. After counting to ten, he knocked on the door furiously, not caring if he had disrupted their sleep or their lovemaking. He did not give a damn.

A high school drop out, he had nothing else going on for himself except for the band. As the youngest member of _Le Creuset,_ he had wanted to keep proving that he took their music seriously. But first, he needed to rouse Miguel out of bed so that they could finally head over to the studio to record an EP.

Of course, their lead guitarist was one hour late.

"Open the damn door, Miguel," the boy muttered under his breath. He then pressed his ear onto the door. No illicit moaning was heard. Just silence.

He knocked again, harder this time, just for good measure.

Nothing. Absolutely no answer. Inwardly groaning, he half-heartedly turned the doorknob, not expecting it to actually turn all the way. When it did, he opened it so fast that he nearly stumbled on his way in.

Regaining his composure, he stopped to glance at the large hotel room.

Columns of light shone blindingly inside from the open curtains. Within the natural sunlight, dust floated in the air, looking like white specks of ripped up feathers.

Shinn's line of vision followed the light until they landed on the bed.

His mouth slightly opened, the breath was hitched in his throat, and his tongue began to parch.

The anger in his face resided. A terrible feeling of dread crawled up inside his chest. He wanted to look away, but like any destruction, whether caused by nature or humanity itself… eyes tended to linger, taking hold of the image of unthinkable horror.

On the bed, his closest friend laid. Her arms were open, her hands unclenched.

The thin dress was hiked all the way up to her waist. The fabric mishandled, the seams nearly torn apart.

There was nothing underneath.

But it was the grave markings that strangle itself onto her neck, the bruising of her lips, the lack of breathing from her chest… that furthered the irrevocable dread that was binding him into standing still.

He wanted to rush up to her, shake her awake, and see the spark of her eyes.

 _And if she doesn't wake up? No. Don't think about that. But what if she does and her eyes are dead?_ His breath shook. _They are going to be dead._

Then he heard it: A stifling, pathetic weeping, and a nearly unrecognizable scream of apologies.

Miguel, he was unseen, just like the violence in his nature that he tried so hard to suppress.

Cagalli was the consequence.

Shinn didn't want to believe it. His hand fell back to the doorknob as he forcibly looked away. With a jolt in his arm, he quickly turned it then ran out the door, being the coward he always wished he wasn't.

* * *

 

Athrun rushes down the wooden stairs, ignoring the confusing artwork that litters the walls. The smell of coffee is rich in his nose, while the light chatter of voices behind the canopy of music stream in his ears.

It comes from below.

As he continues to run down, there's this anomalous lightness in his body, it's as though something that was previously trapped inside of him has been released. It's discomforting. He is not used to this kind of feeling.

Whatever had transpired between him and _her_ left a raw lightness to his being.

He should be screaming with his lungs tearing apart. But Athrun isn't, he just can't.

Letting go, that was a simple explanation to this. When you're used to melancholy, letting go is abnormal. It's not part of this self-destructive art form… of loving someone that doesn't exist anymore.

_A stranger._

That's what she is.

His eyes were like soiled lenses each time he had ever captured a 'perfect' photograph of Cagalli Yula Athh – no… Aiman. The photographs blurred his vision, dispersing all coherent thoughts by replacing them with hope. The camera had taken a new meaning for him over the course of him joining the paparazzi.

_I was looking for the only person who gave a damn about me._

_She abandoned me. Now I'm finally abandoning her._

Those thoughts keep passing through him, like sudden flashes of light.

He catches himself trying to smile. _This time, things will be okay._ But no one could ever be so sure.

When he reaches the bottom of the stairs, he tries not to look at the typeof people sitting at the tables and on the couches. His fingers dig sharply into his palms. These people are leisurely laughing, their voices so casual in their fruitless conversations.

They wouldn't bare any notice to him unless he lifted up his camera. Any one in the right mind of the paparazzi would have snapped a photo. Dearka would call him an idiot for not taking a single shot. Being in _Espresso Soul_ (the exclusive coffee shop that served as a hotel as well) was a privilege for the rich and divine. If anyone from the paparazzi were inside this establishment then it would be their utmost duty to photograph the secrecy of those who sat in the posh chairs, sipping out of their pristine mugs.

But, how could Athrun dare to lift up his camera? He doesn't care about this industry. He just wants to be out of it, to put it all behind him. Maybe today would be the day he abandoned this lifestyle. There is no point in continuing anymore, he no longer feels bound to Cagalli.

She had severed it, slaughtered his curiosity and obsession.

_Obsession?_

Obsession… possession… obsession… possession…

Tendencies that go hand in hand.

"Athrun Zala."

The very sound of his full name causes his eyes to wander around the coffee shop he's in. The starlets he's seen glamoured up on the red carpet look like normal people, in clothes that seem plain but aren't. Yet, it's their faces that give away their silver fame.

"Athrun."

A woman gracefully comes up from one of the tables near the tinted windows. He finally sees her when she gives a slight wave and a sweet smile. _Aisha._

He doesn't want to speak to her. Something in the way she is makes him want to vomit.

She gets up from her seat, walks over to him, her steps smooth while her long dark hair trails behind her like the flow of sunflowers being tickled by the wind.

"How did it go?" she said, tilting her head, her eyes brimming with kindness.

Before he could even answer, she asks another question, "Did Cagalli talk about the contract?"

His brows scrunch up.

"What contract…?" he asks slowly.

"Oh no…" A state of panic destroys her look of kindness. "I thought I could trust her with this… how could she not…" She covers her mouth with her fingers and takes it off. "We need to talk about this in private," Aisha says determinedly to Athrun. "Please, we need to go upstairs, in one of the rooms to discuss this matter. Cagalli was supposed to speak to you about this."

"What? I'm not going anywhere."

She smiles at him, attempting to transfix him. "Cagalli and I would be very thankful if you could – "

"No," he interrupts loudly. A small glare is forming on his face. "I'm not going back up there."

"Going back to that beautiful dome room that looks like a sky?" says another voice, and Athrun quickly turns around, seeing Andy with his lopsided grin and a coffee mug gripped in his hand. "How'd that room look today? What setting did our lovely Cagalli put that artsy sky at?"

"I don't know," replies Athrun, feeling cornered. _Dawn or sunset. That's what that strange room looked like._

Aisha moves to Andy's side. "As I was saying – "

"You were just up there," he says. "C'mon, I bet it was dawn. She's always just standing there looking at that projection of the sky. But I don't blame her, if she were to go outside during dawn, some sneaky paparazzi guy would snap a photo of her." Andy winks at him.

Athrun feels discomfort rising in him as he unknowingly takes a step backwards.

"Andy, you understand that I don't particularly like it when you interrupt me. Athrun, Cagalli and I have important matters to discuss."

Andy snorts. "I wouldn't call it important if I were you, sweetie."

Her pretty mouth frowns as she turns back to Athrun. "I will speak to Cagalli first about this… then I will bring her down here. She was supposed to speak to you about an important matter benefiting both you and her in the long run." Another sugary smile is directed towards him.

"I don't think there will any matters that could benefit Cagalli–" he hesitates to say her full name.

Starlets' names are supposed to be met with fullness, to casually say the first name implied a personal relationship, as opposed to the relationship between a Hollywood spectator and the celebrity prey.

"…Yula Aiman and I," he finishes. The strange distance between him and Cagalli Yula Aiman is becoming more grounded in his reality.

Aisha and Andy exchange glances that go unmissed by Athrun.

"Well then, I will go talk to her now." She looks to Andy before walking away to the stairs. "Keep him company."

He nods with a cheeky smirk as he puts an arm around Athrun's shoulders. The friendly gesture is enough to make him wince.

"Alright, let's talk," Andy says to him.

"I need to take a smoke break."

Andy laughs raucously. "Don't bother going outside. It's dark out. Your kind will be lurking in the shadows or some shit like that. If you walk out, chances are they'll recognize who you are and snap a photo. Wouldn't that be a treat?"

"I don't understand." Though he purposely says this, trying not to believe that he is becoming known.

"Athrun Zala, the photographer that struck a different sort of emotion in our precious Cagalli Yula Aiman."

"What?"

"Let's sit down over there." He points to the corner with the empty booth, the material is of soft blood red suede, while the booth itself is circular giving the impression of privacy. "I'm getting tired of standing, especially knowing that our conversation may be long."

"I'd like to leave as soon as possible, I feel like I'm done here."

"You don't have the keys to the backdoor. If you leave from the front, I guarantee that the paparazzi will swarm you with blinding lights. Then the headlines on those tabloid magazines will milk out your name."

Athrun narrows his eyes.

Andy takes his arm off of Athrun's shoulders, and heads over to the booth, sitting within it and setting his coffee mug on a coaster. With no other choice, Athrun is obliged to follow.

For the first time, as he walks by the couches and tables where the celebrities are lounging, he decides to glance at each one of them without any nonchalance.

Names he never cared for erupts in his mind.

_Meyrin Hawke. Auel Neider. Stellar Loussier._

_Actress, TV star, world-class dancer._

And the names go on and on.

He's taken a photo of nearly every single one of them. Exploiting their faults for the rest of the nameless populace to laugh at. A glimmer of guilt coincides with the apathy he feels. The guilt does not stem from the publicity of their errors, but from his contribution to the victims of the celebrity obsessed world.

Athrun breathes in deeply when he sits down in the booth. The paparazzi are part of that world and so is he.

"Ath-run Zal-la…" Andy says, his tongue drawling out the syllables carefully. "A very pleasant sounding name."

"…Thanks."

He chuckles after taking a sip of his coffee. "The hunter becomes the hunted. Who knew a paparazzo could achieve some recognition from the press."

Athrun refrains from keeping his ignorance. "…Fifteen minutes of fame should be enough to satisfy them. Then my presence won't matter to the world."

"Oh…but there are ways to make it matter. For instance, we can make a story out of it. A fateful meeting between a good-for-nothing photographer and a saintly starlet…c'mon, it's easy! So many rumours can be spun by such a premise like that. Even you can think of one."

"None come to mind." Athrun is looking away from Andy. _Good for nothing, huh?_ The sum of his worth being reduced to nothing makes him feel empty.

"Ah, but you've heard rumours right? Cagalli Yula Aiman and Miguel Aiman are having relationship problems due to his unfaithfulness… that's why she's in _Espresso Soul_ , instead of supporting her husband in the studio. But do you really believe that?"

"I don't really have an opinion on it."

Andy smirk broadens. "Rumours of a man cheating are dismissible in this society. But… a woman cheating, now that's something." He meaningfully looks at Athrun, to catch a reaction or perhaps to suggest something else.

The latter remains hinged, his gaze downward and unsuspecting.

After a moment of silence, Andy says, "Athrun Zala, I'll give you some truth to things, regarding Cagalli."

That is when Athrun glances up at Andy warily.

"Cagalli's here because she's trying to clear her head. She came here right after she put a restraining order against Shinn Asuka."

Athrun's mouth opens, his eyes widen, his fingers fumble with his idle camera.

"Yup. It's not because of the reasons the media provides… they don't know about the restraining order. It happened in a very hush hush manner. But Hollywood's story of Asuka trying to force himself on Cagalli is a good one. Great publicity, especially for _Le Creuset_ , considering that their record sales have been going down… Anyways to get to the point," Andy's tone lowers, losing its casualness. He leans in closer to Athrun.

"Shinn knows too much about _Cagalli,_ almost in the same way _you_ do, Athrun Zala."

There's obnoxious laughter that rings throughout the background blending into the saxophone solo of the jazz record that's playing in the hotel coffee shop.

Andy waits for Athrun to react to his words, he scrutinizes him while sipping coffee.

Athrun eyes lose focus, blurring faintly. His mind unfogs. If Cagalli Yula Aiman has a restraining order against Shinn Asuka then wouldn't she desire to have one against Athrun, for the very reason that both men know _too much_ about her? Athrun would never have to be near her again, he would never have to scramble amidst crowds to eternalize her image. The disheartened feeling of seeing her become something else will vanish away.

All of that seems…okay.

A smile creeps along his lips.

"So…" Athrun finally replies. The smile on his face is unearthly. "What do you want me to do about that? …Stay away from her? I don't really care, I'll do just that. I don't know much about her anymore, but me carrying the knowledge of her whorish ways must be detrimental to her reputation."

Andy's eyes light up in amusement, a laugh ripples through his throat then out his lips as he holds his gut. When he's able to contain himself, he wipes a remaining tear in his eye. "You really think this is about her reputation?! This is about her well-being! Her identity! No one is willing to believe she's a whore. Miguel Aiman and Cagalli Yula Aiman are the power couple of the rock scene. Her reputation is unbreakable. But the way she sees herself, that's a whole different story. Look –you should have seen the way she reacted right after she saw you for the first time. You almost _destroyed_ her."

His teeth grit as he hisses, "What the fuck are you saying?!"

Years of Athrun being anonymous behind a camera made him neglect the idea that he was virtually non-existent to Cagalli. She didn't know of his present pursuits or of his state of mind –to her, he was dead. But their encounter revived his being to her. Perhaps, seeing him was like witnessing the corpse of an individual rise from a broken coffin. Horrifying.

Athrun's breathing is becoming uneven as heat burns through him.

But how the _hell_ can he –out of all people, tear Cagalli Yula Aiman apart?! She isn't wasting her life away, taking photos of celebrities for a living. She doesn't indulge herself in self-loathing! She doesn't chastise herself for still being in love with a person who seems so goddamn far away now.

He is a pathetic paparazzo, who makes a living off of taking pictures of wasteful celebrities. There's nothing valuable for him to contribute to the world. If he weren't part of the paparazzi, what else would he have been doing? Most likely deteriorating in bed as his heart dies of betrayal while she's out fucking a rock star, receiving money and praise just for existing.

His pulse pounds sporadically and his vision is disoriented to the point where he feels nearly dizzy. Wrath is seething within him.

Cagalli has no right to _ever_ feel like he's destroyed her.

She would be a bigger fool than Athrun to believe so.

"Athrun? Are you okay?" That soft voice abruptly slashes through him.

As he looks up, he is caught off guard.

Blistering red.

That is the colour of the veins that starkly web through the white of her eyes. The skin around them is splotched pink, similar to the shade of the dome-like room they were alone in.

Her left hand keeps rubbing at the knuckles of her other hand.

His gaze catches it.

Dried blood is peeking out the tiny slits that lay on her knuckles. Lilac and blue bruises are laced along with those red tearing's.

Athrun only sees it for a few seconds. Her hand is so quick to cover the blemished one. The anger that engulfed him disappears as though it was never there at all.

The evidence on her body is enough to tell him that certain emotions, destructive ones, are still alive within her.

He doesn't know whether or not to feel relieved.

"I'm f-fine," he stumbles with that short phrase as he looks up at her standing figure. "…A-are you okay?" His breathing has calmed down.

A strained smile appears from Cagalli, yet it never reaches her bloodshot eyes. "Yes," she answers, her fingers are pressing hard into her knuckles.

He suddenly remembers something.

Cagalli had once told him this. Whenever she was in pain, she would make the pain worse, with the belief that the more painful it was at that moment, the faster it would vanish. It was a habit she picked up from when she was a child. Scraping her knees, she'd prod her scabs with her nails.

Now she is doing such with her damaged knuckles.

But _why_ are her knuckles damaged?

"Cagalli! I found your gloves," Aisha's panicking voice comes from behind Cagalli.

She smoothly turns to Aisha, who is holding the silk white gloves.

Aisha frantically grabs Cagalli's wrists and forcibly shoves the gloves into her hands. "Put this on, _now_."

Cagalli merely looks at it then lightly drops the pair on the table, in front of Andy's amused face.

Her knuckles are exposed, the busted vessels in them are irksome looking.

"No thank you, Aisha," she says this kindly, as though to limit the air of rebellion in her actions.

Aisha frowns, staring at the gloves. "I see..."

She proceeds to slip inside the booth, with Cagalli following suit. They sit beside each other, their posture straight and poised, almost identical.

Cagalli's hands rest on the table, still concealing the bruised one. If she truly wanted to hide them then she would have placed them under the table, but she leaves them on the surface, as plain as day.

She's sitting in front of Athrun, avoiding his stare entirely, while his eyes are on her hands.

Andy yawns. "Let's get started."

Aisha nods fervently. "Cagalli?"

Her fingers press harder onto her knuckles. Athrun witnesses her arm flinch.

"Yes," she says hollowly. She blinks a couple of times then looks up, her gaze holding Athrun's.

He wants to look away, but the red in her eyes and the withheld tears refuse him to do so.

"Athrun, I don't know how to say this…but this comes from the assumption that you still have them. Photographs, of me…before I married Miguel…" She glances at his camera. "For a large sum of money, any amount you want, I need you to give me each photo, digital ones, and printed ones. Then after that, I need you to erase all evidence you have of them, all of those memories…" as she says this, her lips quiver.

He sucks in a breath and doesn't speak.

 _I don't want to give up those photos to her,_ he realizes, feel pathetic. Those old photos of her are the only things he values, he doesn't value the photographs he's taken of her as a tabloid photographer.

A small pained smile is on her mouth. "It'll help you. You can make your photography business bigger than it is now. That's what you always wanted right?"

_She doesn't have a clue of what I do for a living._

"Cagalli…" He can't look at her now.

"I've seen you struggle, and I think this will help you. You're talented, Athrun. I know you are."

"…Just stop." His voice is strangled.

_I'm a waste. I'm a failure. I'm not the professional photographer you think I am._

"I need those photos. I-I don't want them to e-exist anymore…" She's starting to choke on her words. "This will benefit you as a photographer. Please–"

"No! I'm so sorry, Cagalli," he says with a grimace. "…I don't have them."

She can't ever know that he still possesses them.

And she can't ever know that he is a part of the paparazzi, because soon enough, he'll be abandoning that shameful career…

While finding a way to abandon her.


	8. Kurt Burnt Out i.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a two part chapter.

_Two Years Prior, one Year after Separation_

_Afternoon of the captured photograph_

…

Blinked once.

Blinked twice.

White.

No thoughts passed through.

Only the sight of a white hue blended with faraway tones of sepia appeared.

A sheet was over her body and head. Above her, the dispersed specks of dust danced in the air. With the sheet over her face, her soft breaths were visible. The fabric ever so slightly sucked into the hollow of her mouth.

The mind was blank. For once, the consciousness was a deep absence.

Nothingness was enveloping her being. Weaving in and out, loosening then becoming taut.

If she could remain this way forever, then maybe, she would drown in godforsaken bliss.

To the world she would be dead, to herself, she wouldn't even know who she was.

Because her ties to life would have been cut short.

Except, that was not the case.

…

It came slowly – the reawakening, the seizing of her body's shell.

Consciousness had spread throughout her being, like ocean waves lulling onto smooth sand. It came slow, as if not wanting to disturb a falsified death. But like the waves of the sea, the rhythmic flow must always be caved in by the tempest.

The tempest will grasp, and pull. It will seize a violent hold of the waves, thrashing the azure around as if it were only to be controlled by them.

For her, the tempest came in the form of _pain._

An excruciating amount of pain, akin to rusted wires squeezing her entire body, binding itself so tight that her skin could have been swelling right before tearing. Screaming was her first instinct, but her voice abandoned her. Her throat was empty, the tongue parched. Pain had seared right past her throat and mouth.

Where was this pain coming from?

The memories ripped across her mind, gashing away at the protective barrier of fruitless inexistence.

There he was.

Strangling her.

Defiling her.

His hands were still everywhere.

They were the pain rippling in her battered body.

_You didn't let me die, Miguel._

Her staggering breath. Her heart needed to escape her chest. Burning tears.

_Why?_

The most insufferable pain came from somewhere else:

A site of pleasure, transformed into a destructed site of her femininity.

It was then that she realized that he had done more.

A final wish had occurred in her.

_I want to die._

* * *

The only source of light inside was a single bulb that hung like a noose on the ceiling.

Minimalistic graffiti had stained the red walls of the recording studio's underground washroom. There were distasteful phrases sprayed on in the two stalls. Messy scrawls were hidden behind others, their letters twisted and tangled with one another. They were bolded by the vibrant colours they were written in.

The washroom was nearly empty. Except for one stall. A young bassist occupied it. His body was hunched over the toilet seat. Head hovered above its dirty waters. Hands were clutched onto his stomach. Squeezing it, he dug his fingers in, needing the churning feeling to go away.

The visions started to hit him again. Possibilities of what had happened to his friend lurked darkly inside his mind. His horrified imaginings were explicit in their nature. These imaginings seemed, however, not far from reality.

Conscience kept stabbing him, accusing him of being a coward for running away. If only he did not bare any witness to her limp body.

Yet… that was so selfish of him to think of such a thought. Cagalli was more valuable than the guilt that resided in him. Shinn began to be more disgusted by himself. How dare he care more about his feelings than the damage of her body and mind?

But he didn't want to see her eyes lose light. He didn't want to see her eyes appear vacant…

Vomit rose up to his throat.

When he had first been alone with Cagalli, he noticed the way her eyes shone like fresh honey on a warm spring day.

Initially, he had been intimidated by her presence during the times he's seen her with Miguel. Often Miguel's hand was placed on the small of her back like a statement – an X mark on her body. She hadn't seemed to care. She humoured him with lively smiles, bantering with him about trivial matters. Though, Shinn had always felt that there was something absent within her, like something had been pulled out from inside her chest and thrown away, waiting to be retrieved. For a short while, he couldn't quite place what it was.

It was one day, backstage, when they were left alone together. Managers and band mates had rushed out to the sound booth in attempt to figure out why there was a malfunction on their instruments' sound. Cagalli and Shinn had been sitting across one another in folded chairs. She smiled at him then and her eyes matched that smile in brightness, drawing out this strange urge to let out vulnerable pieces of himself to her.

The story he revealed was one of how he dropped out of high school and used to busk on the streets with an empty stomach. He had felt pathetic for chasing a dream that could leave him dead. Everyone he knew had thought of him as foolish and had abandoned him for his stupidity. But somehow, Cagalli understood all this. She did not judge. The compassion that came forth surprised Shinn with such intensity that it shook away his verbal restraints.

Soon after, their relationship evolved from being mere acquaintances to a friendship. He began to learn more about her, discovering that she too had dropped out of university after a year. Her reasoning stemmed from her desire to see her former lover succeed in his craft. As well as the aimlessness she needed to get rid of.

Cagalli's father had thrown her out of his care, cutting her off everything like she was never his daughter in the first place. A politician with no daughter was what her father had become. Izumi Nara Athha accused her of losing her own dreams for her lover. But Cagalli was never a person to have her own dreams. Her whole life, other people's dreams were pushed onto her, pressing away the dreams she could have had. She didn't even know what her dreams were anymore. She only knew whom she wanted, and who she wanted to be.

Brightened eyes were seen from her when she spoke about this. It seemed that she had this internal need to give someone special glimpses of a past that was so hidden. It was then that Shinn had vowed that he would try to draw out the liveliness of those eyes. But somehow he knew that deep down that brightness wasn't always going to be there.

Bile spilled from Shinn's mouth, its putrid, acidic taste tainted his tongue as it spurted out into the toilet. He was gasping. The tears in the corners of his eyes were close to falling. A mix of his salvia and vomit dribbled down his chin as his head rested on the toilet seat. The horrible scent streamed into his nostrils.

"Dammit," he managed to mutter, staring at the chunks of puke.

The memory of Cagalli lying limp on that bed haunted him. She was the flower that had been violently ripped from the ground, left to wilt in the burning sun.

"Fuck!" His harsh scream echoed, sounding unlike his own.

_Please Cagalli, please be okay. Please._

The washroom door then opened with a low screech.

Shinn's breath stilled.

He stared into the pool of vomit beneath him. His focus transferring to the sounds that reverberated in his ears. Whoever entered had soft footsteps. They were slow in pace, as if their legs were weak and about to give out.

Then they suddenly stopped. That sound was replaced by the sullen squeak of the faucet turning, following the hard gush of ice-cold water against their hands. Their breathing was uncontrolled. Every time they attempted to take a deep breath it wavered.

They were scrubbing their hands together with vigor, pulling at their calloused fingers. Then they splashed their face with water multiple times.

The person muttered out panicked curses.

Shinn grimaced. He knew who stood in that enclosed space with him. Who else could it be?

"…She'll be alright. No one's going to fucking know. Absolutely no one."

The cells of Shinn's body numbed. Dizziness started to grasp his vision. The water mixed in with the vomit didn't even look the same anymore. They became blurry duplicates that fiercely shook.

A gross chuckle came out from the person outside the stall.

The person that Shinn called a friend, the person who found him on a street corner and recruited him for his band – ignoring his inexperience and youth. He had been Shinn's savior, the promise out of his shitty life. He was someone who had appeared out of nowhere. Gravity had pulled them together, but…at the same time, there was something within them that was unsettling to Shinn.

Miguel Aiman was a mental torturer – that edged into a physical one.

"Hell, she got what she deserved."

The hard stream of water was cut short.

That was when Shinn heard a low snigger.

Beads of sweat formed on Shinn's forehead. His eyes rolled up to the walls of the stall. The graffiti was moving, spinning sporadically in front of him.

The sniggering worsened, becoming like a terrible distortion between wails and laughter.

_Stop it. Stop laughing._ Shinn's stomach kept heaving. The sweat on his body seeped out his pores. _Miguel, how could you fucking do that to her?_

The laughter rang on the tiles and the rusted walls.

His body couldn't take it anymore. A grunt, and then vomit rushed out of Shinn's mouth, like blood spilling out of a fresh wound. He felt that he had emptied out every thing he could.

"Alright! So who's the poor guy who had too much to drink?!" Miguel Aiman's tone was scarred with amusement.

Shinn's throat dried. He didn't know if he could speak. What would he even say to Miguel? He looked at his hands that were on the side of the toilet… they were shaking. He wanted it to stop, but they kept at it. He suddenly imagined his knuckles caked with blood. They were ready for it.

"C'mon, answer me. I wanna know who had too much fun last night."

_Just shut the hell up, Aiman._

Miguel's footsteps staggered closer and closer to Shinn's stall. Shinn heard him click his tongue. The footsteps stopped. He was standing right outside.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are."

A kick slammed open the stall's door.

Shinn's eyes shut tight.

For a moment he pretended that none of this existed, that nothing ever happened. Cagalli was only a hallucination, along with Miguel who stood right behind him. Whatever he saw was a nightmare, not adhering to reality in any sense. That's right. Cagalli and Miguel were a fine, beautiful couple, with neither of them possessing an internal brokenness.

Unfortunately, that moment of make-belief was too brief.

"Shinn, you poor bastard."

Eyes flying open, Shinn saw the shadow that masked him, the darkness almost swallowing him. An icy coldness sank into his veins. His chest felt tight. The hot sweat that had coated his body ran cold.

Slowly, Shinn turned around. As he did so, the blood drained from his face. What he saw made his stomach stir. It was a dark feeling that did not arise from his body's biological need to throw up.

From the short time of Shinn knowing Miguel, he had been intrigued by that natural confidence. The confidence that reined his band mate's composure was simply comprised of two things: the easy grin that was usually on his thin lips and the haughty eyes which evoked the thought that nothing would ever destroy or come into Miguel's way.

Hours ago, when Shinn had found Cagalli, he had not attached Miguel to the stifling cries he heard. It was not as if he did not know that it belonged to Miguel. The visualization of it appeared impossible. Somehow, weakness could never coincide with Aiman. Yet as he saw the expression baring Miguel Aiman's face, he was able to connect Aiman's voice to a visual he had previously thought he would never live to see. It ridded every impression that the man standing before him was ever a self-assured person. Instead he appeared like a man who had been weak his whole life. Maybe, this was true, or perhaps this man had carved himself a new mask, reworking it until he was able to deceive – not just the people around him, but also himself.

To make others believe in your persona, you must also believe in it too.

Miguel's open mouth was twisted downward in anguish at the same time it appeared entertained. The faint light that glimmered on his face exposed its streaky wetness from his previous sobs and laughter. The piercing redness of his eyes was struck with a painfulness that would make anyone feel sorry for him, but Shinn knew better.

Aiman stalked further into the stall.

Shinn was still on his knees, with his gaze on the other man. There was no fascination in it, only a realization of who Miguel really was. His hands then closed into fists, his nails sank into his palms, the ache that came with it was unnoticeable.

Miguel bent down to Shinn's level, face to face.

"Asuka…" he murmurs.

"There's something you got to know about women." Miguel's eyes held onto his in a steady way, the way an older brother would do to a younger one. "Sometimes… you got to hurt them to make them obedient. You will feel a little bad after, but not so much." The corner of his mouth tweaked up. "Oh God! You must know how beautiful a woman's pain is, especially if you're the one who inflicted it! I still feel good but I feel bad for feeling this good… It's an ugly feeling you know? But hey, at least you got the bitch in your control."

Visions of Cagalli played through. The hems threads were too loose to have been recklessly pulled. They were yanked in haste. Her lips swelled with blue and purple, her neck a nebula of bruises that ranged between the colours of ruby and navy. Droplets of dried blood were upon her mouth and on the sheets.

Shinn crawled up off his knees. He grabbed Miguel by the collar, almost ripping the cotton fabric. Spit flew out his mouth as he yelled, "What the fuck is wrong with you Miguel? How dare you!" There was a loud bang. He had shoved him against the aluminum stall. "You're a piece of shit!"

Miguel's head lazily cocked to the side. A forced smirk developed on his lips. "Hey, hey, let go of me Shinn. Calm down. You don't know what you're talking about! Do I look like a monster?"

Shinn gritted his teeth, his grip on his collar tightened.

"C'mon Shinn – aren't we all a little fucked up? Right now… everything is so fucked up! Everything. Don't say anything al-al…right?" There was a large crinkle in his brow, his eyes were pleading. "…Do I look like I could do some fucked up shit like, like that?"

Shinn knew he didn't. Outer imagery was as deceptive as the way one can falsely carry themselves.

Hauling Miguel's body, ignoring his desperate pleads for affirmation, Shinn hurled him across the stall, ignoring the wincing sounds the other man made when he landed hard on the tiles.

Shinn didn't even bother taking one last look at Miguel's pathetic form.

All he could see in his mind was Cagalli.

_I need you to be alive._

Barging out the washroom and out the building, his feet carried him faster than his racing thoughts.

* * *

 

**…**

She didn't know what she was doing anymore.

Everything was happening in a blur.

Her body kept moving automatically, giving her no time to think of what to do next.

The water hit hard against the tub behind her, deafening to her ears, like it was coming from the inside of her head, plowing into her skull. She had already washed up her body – scrubbed hard enough that her skin now was raw. She felt perpetually dirty. She was dirty. When the hot water almost scorched her skin, she had seen blood drip in lines down her legs travelling onto her feet. She wasn't screaming at that time. Instead, she was crying, bent down. Her fingers were pressed up against everything that was aching. She had wanted to make the pain in every spot worse, so that it was excruciating enough to disappear.

She already shattered the lamp that was beside the bed. She had grabbed it then rushed into the washroom, banged it on the sink, avoiding her own reflection entirely. The mirror itself was framed by fake gold. The walls around it were white. Tiles in a hexagon shape were white. Claw foot bathtub, white, open shower curtains, gold. White and gold – purity and holiness. Soon it will be sprayed red. She didn't care, what she needed was it all to end.

Glass sprinkled the floor in a trail leading up to her.

Slumped down against the tub, her body was fully covered, concealing pretty colours that should never be peeking out through a woman's skin. She had put on all the small amount of clothes she'd found in her suitcase. Layered herself, then took the spare – the clean, bed sheets and wrapped it around her shoulders after she finally got out the shower.

Her wrinkled fingertips now held the thickest shard from the dismembered lamp. The hand that held it aimed at the opposite wrist that drooped over the tub.

She was ready.

Her heavy gaze was on the thin veins on her wrist. They were straight lines that diverged the higher it reached the end of her palm. Intricate, the veins were. Faded purples and greens, indicating different routes.

For once, she realized, she was choosing something for herself. It had been so long. And the feeling that arose was good, too good.

Cagalli was going to end it.

Then there he was, appearing in her mind, like a vision from the present him she didn't know of.

Closing her eyes, she spoke inside. _How do you look now? I want to know how you're doing. I get scared that I'm going to forget your face._ C'mon we've been together for so long, Cagalli! Spent days like little eternities together. You can't forget me, you've kissed my lips, ran your fingers through my hair, have felt my heartbeat. We've done everything. _Athrun, I hate myself…_ _I really do._ I'll love that hate away. Don't you worry… _You won't be able to do that_. Oh, I will.

She knew her fingers were no longer her own, her body not even hers to have.

As the fingers clutched the thick, smooth shard, ready to break open skin, she was interrupted by a loud noise.

_How much crueler can the world be? If you want to kill me, do it already. I'm tired. Send Miguel. Or even better, send Athrun._ _I'm scared now. I want to end me._ Eyes still shut, she turned away, wanting to mute her thoughts.

Someone was calling out to her, but she couldn't register the voice. Her head was hurting. Everything ached. The body had failed her. She was used to the pain, experiencing it inwards so much that it spread outwardly. Yet she only heard the pain that gnawed at her head. It kept saying her name, yelling. She didn't want to look. She knew if she did her eyes would become blurry with tears.

"Stay away from me!" She screamed out. _Because if you come any closer I won't be able to finish what I started._ Her hands shook as they felt the emptiness of the air. Where's the goddamn shard?

At that instance, arms clasped around her shoulders and pulled her inwards, their chest bumping into her head. She attempted to push them away. She tried to kick. She tried to bite. But they secured her in this hold, making her feel trapped all over again. When her eyes burst open, she couldn't even look at their face.

They kept repeating her name like a fucking ritual to wake her up from this hell.

She was so close.

"Look at me! Please, Cagalli."

"No, no, stop let go!"

Then their hand took hold of her jaw. They were gentle as they turned her face to theirs.

She could no longer resist.

His hair was as dark as the sky during the midnight. Watery eyes shone like murky green rivers. A small pitiful smile formed on his chapped lips. "It's me…Cagalli, it's me Sh-"

"Ath-" She was only one syllable away from transforming it into his full name. Though the first part of his name slipped from her mouth, the man who held her had his hair like the darkest of shadows. His eyes had lost the vivid colour. They were instead a brownish burgundy…

Cagalli recognized him now. "Shinn?" Her voice was quiet.

Shinn held her closer, embracing her small body into him. His warmth made her feel conflicted. She didn't know if she was afraid or sad.

Then he murmured, voice reassuring and calm, "I'm here for you, Cagalli. I'll take care of you…I swear."

Gazing back at him, she witnessed the tears that were being withheld in his eyes. Cagalli nodded, feeling her own tears fall down her cheeks. Wrapping her arms around his waist, she let her head rest onto the crook of his neck. Shinn placed his head atop her shoulder, interlacing his fingers into her hair.

For a while, neither one of them wanted to let go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is more Athrun-centric


End file.
